Just So You Know
by flawlesspeasant
Summary: Jo has never been very good at expressing her feelings. So when she unsuspectingly falls in love with her boss, she's not exactly sure how to tell him. But she has to muster up the courage to do it somehow... before she's too late. -Slightly AU-
1. First Day

"_Some of these conditions could be severe from far southern Washington, with heavy thunderstorms moving up into the Olympia and eventually the Seattle area. Expect heavy thunderstorms throughout the week with highs and lows of about 60 and 40 respectively. Tuesday night, we're generally watching lighter showers move on through the area, quickly passing through and expected to clear out by Friday morning. Going into the weekend, expect cloudy but damp air with a humidity rating of about 70%. We should be back to the warm, summertime weather by the end of next week. Now…"_

As soon as I hear the weatherwoman begin to speak about today's forecast, I leisurely push the volume button twice on my remote to turn up my old, tube television set. I'm beginning to get used to the wet, murky Seattle weather by now. Granted I've only been living here for a little over a month, but it doesn't take much to get used to a place that pretty much rains more than it stays dry. I know for a fact that I should probably dress for rain today, but on the off chance that I can in fact, show some skin… I'll listen to the weather forecast for the day anyway.

I reach down with my hands and pull my thick, wool blanket up to rest underneath my neck. Now I know for a fact that when I take this blanket off my body and decide to get my lazy ass up out of this bed for the day, I'm going to have red blotches all over my arms and probably my chin; but I guess I don't much care. I'm not allergic to very many things, but it's just my luck to actually be allergic to the warmest thing possible. I take my chances with the wool because the alternative is to wake up frostbitten not because I'm stupid, by the way. I know I'm allergic to wool and I know that I'll probably be scratching myself for the rest of the day. I know all of this.

Reluctantly, I stick one of my arms out into the bitterly cold air of my bedroom to grab my cell phone off the power-cord it's been on all night. I push the "ok" button on my phone to make it light up. I guess you could probably say that my cell phone is the nicest thing I've ever gotten for myself. I didn't buy it or anything like that, so needless to say that it's not one of those smartphones that you see the TV ads about. I picked it up from the dollar store a couple years back. I just decided that it was time for me to get a cell phone so I just grabbed it one day. The only things I really deem necessary to spend my money on are those little reloadable cards to refill the minutes on it. It's a crappy little Trac-Phone but it makes calls and it does what it needs to do, for the most part.

Of course, I don't have any missed calls or missed text messages when I check it. I almost never do. For one, it's not like I have very many people that give a damn about me enough to text me or call me; and for two, I've never been very good at making friends anyway. It sort of goes both ways though. When I was in college I had a roommate that I've never spoken so much as three words to, and that's the god-honest truth. I'm not really a social person and that's honestly the way I like it. I could probably use some friends in my life but it's not like making friends is actually a priority of mine.

The clock on my cell phone boasts a very early "5:25 a.m." reading. I toss my phone onto the very limited free space I have on my twin-sized bed next to me and take the only blanket off of my body. To say that I'm tired would be a major understatement. Hell, even the term "exhausted" would be pushing it. The thing is that I can't really sleep, though. I don't sleep much. I never have been much of a sleeper and I probably won't ever be. I think the last time I slept through the night was when I was fifteen. I've been walking around like a sleep-deprived zombie for the last twelve years, so it's pretty much a normalcy to me at this point. I've learned to function on less than two hours of sleep at a time and I shit-you-not when I say that I think it should be a sport in the Olympics to be able to do that. It's a real talent.

I roll over onto my side and put both of my feet down onto the cold linoleum floor of my bedroom. I use my arms and pull myself completely out of my bed. My box-spring broke during the move here and I still have yet to replace it, so I've been dealing on a mattress on the floor. I merely tiptoe for no reason at all over to the black garbage bag I keep my clothes in and kneel down to look inside it for something to throw on. I'm not quite sure what I should be looking to wear. It's my first day. Should I dress up real nice and stuff or should I just slum it in a pair of jeans? I just wish I knew what everybody else was going to wear. _What if I'm the only girl?_

I drag out my best pair of blue jeans and hold them up to examine them using the crappy amount of light I'm getting from my TV. They're not too wrinkled so I guess I don't have to worry about ironing wrinkles out of them. I toss the jeans over my shoulder onto my bed and keep looking. I grab the first pair of clean panties I stumble across and throw them with the jeans. I only own two bras, so as soon as I find one, I throw it with the jeans and the underwear. I find a pair of socks and toss them with the other clothing articles I dug out. I just need to find a damn shirt.

I reach deep inside the bag and pull out exactly what I was looking for; a dark green, long-sleeved, button-down shirt with a pocket on the left breast. I rock back off my knees and onto my feet. I stand up and go over to the light switch. I fling the light on and squeeze my eyelids shut tight as my eyes ache from the sudden light. I untie the draw strings on the pair of sweatpants I wore to bed last night and take them off. I can still get one more wear out of them before they become dirty, so rather than throw them into the dirty laundry garbage bag, I toss them onto my bed. I take off the underwear I have on and put them inside the dirty laundry bag.

I do kind of want to take a shower, but I'll just change my underwear instead. I'd rather take a shower later on tonight after work instead of this morning. I can only afford to shower once a day so I'll choose wisely. I doubt that I'll get to get my hands dirty today, but on the off chance that I actually do get to do some cutting, I'll save my shower for tonight. I step into the clean underwear I set out for myself and secure them on my waist. I snatch up the pair of jeans I put out and shove my legs into them. I button them around my waist and zip them up. I grab the rim of my t-shirt and take it off as well. I grab the bra I threw out and strap it around my chest. I align the cups with my boobs and put my arms through the straps. I yank on the green shirt and pull my hair through the head-hole. I sit down on my bed and start pulling the socks on my feet.

I get back up off my bed and tiredly stalk to my bathroom. I flip on the light and go over to the sink. Out of instinct, I glance up to the corner of my bathroom to the spot right above my toilet. It looks like it's stayed the same for the most part. I don't think it's grown anymore. Once I monitor the black spot, I twist the nozzle and turn on the faucet so I can brush my teeth. My very first paycheck will be going towards buying myself a new bed. I've already decided that I'm going to get myself a brand new bed with bedding that doesn't make me have allergic reactions. But if I have money left over, I swear I'll hire someone to scrape out the mold that's growing in my bathroom. I swear I will.

My apartment really does suck. But the thing is…I'm aware of this. It's one thing for your living arrangements to suck really badly and for you to not even know it. See, I know that my apartment isn't even worth the $150 I pay in rent every month. I KNOW this. But the alternative is going back to sleeping in my car and I'd rather just not do that. Plus, it's really not all that horrible. At least I have a roof over my head, you know? Some people don't even have that. Sure, there's mold growing in my bathroom. Sure I have about thirteen mousetraps set all through the place. And okay, I admit that I refuse to take a shower without flip-flops on my feet. But it's really not that awful. It could be worse. Like…I could be sleeping in my car.

After I finish brushing my teeth and washing my face up, I snatch my makeup bag off the back of the toilet. Normal people would probably look at me like I'm an idiot for putting makeup on just to go practice medicine all day, but seriously. I'm not really a normal person and I totally get that first impressions are everything. I'm not exactly the prettiest model in the magazine, so any amount of makeup really does help my case. I'm not ugly or anything though. Sighing, I pull my eyelid downwards so I can apply my eyeliner as flawlessly as possible. I yank my hair out of the ponytail I slept with it in last night and shudder when it topples down to the middle of my back. I run a quick comb through it just so my part is correct and put the comb down. When I'm done with my makeup and stuff, I step back and look at myself in the mirror.

_I don't think they'll be able to tell. _I turn off the light to my bathroom and go back to my bedroom. I really hope they won't be able to tell, because that's honestly the last thing I need from people. Have you any idea how truly annoying that is? Because once people find out that the reason you're so skinny is because you literally can't afford to eat much, they start to feel bad for you. And when they figure out that the reason you wore that pair of jeans twice in one week is that you only own three pairs of jeans, they start to treat you different. Then it's completely game over when the cat gets out of the bag about you living in your car. I've been through this before and I can singlehandedly tell you that pity parties aren't fun…especially when they pertain to your job. So with that being said, I don't think they'll be able to tell that I live in a shit-hole. I think I dressed well enough to cover that up.

I push the "off" button on my TV and stomp my feet into my shoes. I stuff my cell phone into the back pocket of my jeans and grab the only jacket I own. I slip my arms through the armholes of my jacket and zip it all the way up. I'm not sure if it's raining outside just yet but just in case it is, I pull my hood over my head as well. I walk into my kitchen and grab my car keys off the counter beside my refrigerator. I unlatch the latch-lock I put on my front door at night, unlock the main lock and open up the door. I step out into the main hallway of the apartment complex and as soon as I step out, I'm overwhelmed by the scent of some type of drug. It's probably pot that I'm smelling. It's not that the junkies I live here with aren't into heavier things than marijuana, because I'm sure that I've caught at least ten people within the last month shooting up behind the dumpsters. It's just that pot is the only thing they're bold enough to smoke in public. I don't think the cops really care that this is basically a crack-house at this point.

I wrap my hand around the railing and walk down the small flight of steps that lead out into the parking lot. I go over to my beat down, gold Grand Am and unlock the door. I really do try to take care of my car. It's an old, 1990 Grand Am so it's pretty rundown. But it's mine and it's literally the only thing I have, so I really do try hard to take care of it. I start my car and back out of the parking space I was in and start driving in the direction of work. I can't really tell if I'm excited to start or nervous or both. As I approach a red traffic light, my hands tap along in time to the song that's playing. I look both ways before I turn right at the red light and sing along in my head to the song that I can hear that's playing from one of my CDs. _ To roads to walk down…one road to choose… Thinking over the things that you said, I'm thinking over…the things that you said. _I turn and speed past the space needle. I still get a little bit lost sometimes coming through here to get to the hospital, but I made a mental note to go past the space needle and make a sharp left.

I make my sharp left turn and continue through town until I finally see the sign that indicates that I didn't get lost this time. **Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital**, I made it without getting lost. I wander through the workers' parking lot and find an empty space right next to a big red pickup truck. I park my car and step out after locking it up. There's nobody else in this parking lot with me which actually scares the shit out of me. Either I'm really late or I'm early. I'm leaning towards late though, because if I were early, there wouldn't be a lot of cars in this parking lot. _Shit. Late on your first day? So much for first impressions. _I stuff my car keys in my jacket pocket and hurry over to the entrance.

As soon as I get under the pavilion-like structure that covers the main doors, I take my hood down. I walk around towards the back to the workers' entrance and open up the heavy metal door. We had orientation last week where they showed us where to go and where to clock in and stuff to start our shifts. I know I'm supposed to go to the surgical wing to the time clock so I can punch in and then I have to go to the locker rooms. I think I remember where everything is. I go to an elevator and push the button to get it to open. I glance down into my pocket at my cell phone to check the time. It's 6:37 in the morning. No, I'm really not that late…so why wasn't there anybody else in the lot?

The surgical wing is on the third floor I believe, so I push the third floor button and stand in the back of the elevator and wait. If I'm being honest, I really hate elevators. I just think they feel weird. The way they shift under your feet and clank and make you feel all weird? Yeah, I hate that. I'm not one of those people that have an irrational phobia of getting stuck in them or anything like that. I just don't like the way they make you feel like gravity is working against you. That's seriously just weird. The elevator door screeches when it opens up again and I walk out of it. I'm supposed to clock in for my shift and go straight back to the locker rooms and wait for further instructions. I remember during orientation when they showed us how to clock in, so I head over to the time clock so I can punch in. I must admit that I'm confused on how to do it, because when they showed us how to clock in they said that we have to slide our ID badges and I don't have one yet… and I don't even see anyone I can ask for help. Great.

I stand over by the clock and just wait around. I'm starting to wish I never came here. My nerves are starting to get the best of me which isn't good for me. I don't think I've ever felt so out of place in my life. I turn my head so I can actually look at the time clock and see that the time reads "6:40." I don't want to risk being any later than I already appear to be, so I just nix the whole punching in idea and trot back to the locker rooms that they showed us to during orientation. I grab the handle and yank the door open. It's loud in here…and the noise is the first thing I notice.

As soon as I turn the corner, I'm met with a couple shirtless boys and girls that aren't wearing any pants. I silently find the locker I claimed during orientation and open it up. It was empty the last time I saw it but now it has two pairs of light powder blue scrubs and an ID badge waiting for me. I pick up the scrub top and look at it. I marked my size down as a small but the more I look at it, I think I might have needed a medium. I put the top down on the bench in front of me and take off my jacket.

A smaller, dark-skinned girl with a mound of curly black hair on her head stakes her claim on the locker right next to mine. She takes off the windbreaker jacket she had on and shoves it inside her locker. She was smarter than me, because she wore a jacket with a tank top underneath of it and a pair of jogging pants. She must've known that we were going to be immediately changing. Keeping my back turned away from her, I grab the bottom of the green shirt I put on this morning and fold it up nicely. Behind me, the girl sucks her teeth and as instinct, I turn my head to see what she sucked her teeth at. She holds up her scrub top and looks genuinely disappointed in it. She appears to just suck it up though, and she puts her scrub top over her head. It's like a dress on her. It's baggy and really long.

I start by putting my top on too. It goes on with ease over my head and my arms fit nicely through the head-hole. But I'm a little bit chestier than I'm willing to admit. I'm not really as petite as I look from a distance. I have pretty rounded curves and while my stomach is perfectly flat, I have these gigantic c-cup boobs that are weirdly, naturally perky and they sit at an awkwardly high position on my chest…and my scrub top won't fit over them. _Fantastic. _I use one of my arms to squish my boobs down and my free hand to yank my shirt down.

"It's so hard to get the sizes of these things right." My locker neighbor makes small talk with me. She's busy trying to adjust her entirely-too-big scrub top so that it doesn't hang off her shoulders. She holds her hands out to me. "Need some help?"

"…Actually, maybe we should trade." I stop trying to force the shirt over my chest and just look at her. She's actually quite pretty. Her dark brown skin is smooth and ideally flawless and her black, plastic-rimmed glasses make her look so sophisticated and smart. Her wildly curly hair really suits her thin, delicate face. She's so pretty that it makes me not even want to look at her, if you know what I mean. "You look like you need a smaller size and I clearly need a bigger one. Is yours bigger than a small?"

"Yeah, mine's a medium." She takes off her top just as quickly as she put it on and hands it to me. I forcefully pull the small top back over my head and hand it to her. "…Steph, by the way." After she puts her new shirt on, she offers her hand out to me. I pull my hair through the head-hole of my new top and shake her hand. "Steph Edwards… err, Stephanie, I mean." She chuckles at her own ineptitude and tosses a loose, twisty curl out of her face. "I forgot how 'unprofessional' it is to introduce myself as Steph." She states, putting air-quotes around the word unprofessional.

"Um…" I don't know why, but my mind goes blank for a minute. I can't remember my own name. "…J…Jo….sephine. Josephine." _Get it together. Stop stuttering so much. _"Jo… Jo Wilson." I put my tongue in my cheek and inhale a high-pitched breath. "Jo… it's short for Josephine, but nobody ever calls me Josephine unless I'm in some kind of trouble or something. So call me Jo." I take my jeans off and fold them neatly into a pile so I can stuff them in my locker. Stephanie follows my lead and takes her own pants off as well. "…Who's your resident?" I pick up my scrub pants and examine them to see if I'll need to trade these off with Stephanie as well.

"Yang." She slips her legs through her pants and secures them on her waist. She ties the drawstrings on them and adjusts them quite nicely. "Yours?"

"Kepner." I tie a bow in the drawstrings to my pants and sit down to put my shoes back on. "That's too bad. It would've been nice to know at least one person in my group." I fling my hair over my shoulder and shove my left foot into my shoe. "Guess I'll see you around lunch time or something."

"Yeah, totally." She shuts her locker and goes on about her business. I finish tying my shoe and do the same.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Who's presenting?" I glance down at my watch then back up to the group that I'm responsible for. They all look at me like I just spoke a foreign language to them. I think I was pretty clear though. "Did they not teach you this in school?" They still look at me like they have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not sure that I'm cut out for this whole teaching thing. I suck my teeth at the idiots and shove the chart into the arms of a short, thin girl with shoulder-length blonde hair. "You…" I mumble. I'm not sure what her name is and I really just don't care. "When we present, we—"

"Maya Anderson, 31 years old…currently recovering from a hernia repair. Showing signs of post op infection." Before I can finish yelling at my group, Kepner comes into the room with her group. I guess I'm grateful that she spared my idiots from getting yelled at, but she's kind of stealing my teaching moment. Apes doesn't annoy me as much as she used to annoy me. Ever since she got with Jackson she's toned it down a whole lot. Jackson and Ape do a very good job of balancing each other out for that matter. So because she's not totally annoying me anymore, I just let her continue. "Can anybody tell me what the signs of post op infection for hernia repair are?"

Her idiots look just as clueless as mine, if not more. I glare at my own group. "How about you guys? Any of you know the signs of a post op infection for a hernia repair?"

"I'll give you guys the benefit of the doubt and say that you're all probably just nervous for your first day." April is much nicer to her idiots than I am to mine. "Redness, swelling, drainage from the incision sight… those are all indicators of a post op infection." She pushes a couple buttons on the electronic chart she has in her hand and smiles at the patient. I must admit that I've always been kind of jealous of Ape's bedside manners. She just has that soft edge that I can only dream of sometimes. "Please excuse us. I don't know if Dr. Karev told you, but this is a teaching hospital and today we just got our brand new interns… we're supposed to be training them."

"Of course." The patient pleasantly smiles and nods her head.

"Now can anybody tell me how we monitor and treat a post op infection from a hernia repair?" April turns to both her idiots and mine. You know what? I'm cool with her teaching my idiots. Less work for me. "Go 'head." April nods her head at a girl in the back that raised her hand. I have so many names to learn. I don't really feel like learning everyone's names because chances are, they're not all gonna make it anyway. A good bit of them will screw up and be out of here sooner or later. I guarantee by the time this is all done and over there will only be about six of them left here.

"Check the incision periodically…once every three hours. A dose of antibiotics intravenously and constant bandage changes." The girl that answered Ape's question came from her own group. She's kind of tall. She towers at a nice height above the rest of the idiots she's standing beside and she looks like she's scared out of her wits. But she's right with the treatment plan, so I don't know why she's so scared. She looks like she's too good to be here. She looks like she should be a nurse as opposed to a surgical intern. I've had my fair share of models, so I know one when I see one. I can guess how she made it through med school. I won't judge her; I'm just saying that it's pretty obvious that she takes her clothes off quite often. I have pretty good radar for girls like that.

"You." I point at her and her eyes grow about two sizes bigger. "Maybe you could teach my interns a thing or two." I snatch the chart back off the short chick I gave it to and fold it closed since April already rounded on her. I snap my fingers at them to get them to follow me and they do. I shove the chart in the holder that's hanging on the back of the door and walk past the nurses' station. "Go down to the pit and see if anybody down there needs your help. Don't kill anyone." I mumble to my group and they all scatter like cockroaches in kitchen lights.

I grab an electronic chart from the charging station that sits right beside the nurses' station and check to see if I can round on any patients on my own. I'm really not cut out to teach anybody anything. I couldn't even teach myself anything when I was an intern, how the hell does anybody expect me to teach them? I lean against the charging station and just take a minute. This is going to be a long, long, long day.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Have you seen the plastics flunky? The one that pals around with Dr. Sloan all the time? Talk about EYE. CANDY." As soon as I walk over to the table that Stephanie is sitting at in the cafeteria area, she starts to talk to me. I'm not sure if I'd call Stephanie a friend just yet. She's just the only person I've made actual contact with today. Well, she, Dr. Kepner and Dr. Karev are the only ones I've made contact with. But Stephanie is the only one that I'm not scared out of my mind to talk back to. "I didn't quite catch his name… but he's incredibly good-looking."

I sit down and stir my straw in my plastic cup full of soda. I'm hungry but I really can't afford to buy anything to eat here at the moment. I'll eat when I go home later. "Dr. Avery, yeah." I take a sip of my drink and kick my feet up on a free chair across from me. My feet are so tired and I've only been on them for six hours. I have six more hours to go. "I'm not sure, but I think him and my resident are a thing. They were kissing today… not unless that's just a casual thing that people do here…"

"Of course he has a girlfriend or whatever. Of course. You don't get to be that good-looking and single. It doesn't work that way." She's busy eating her French fries two at a time. "So anyway, Dr. Yang is a GOD. I saw her do a mitral valve replacement in a half hour today. That's unheard of!"

"…You got to sniff the inside of an OR today?" I slide my cup away from me and just look at her with the purest amount of jealousy.

"Hell no!" She starts to laugh at me as if I said the silliest thing she's ever heard of. "She didn't actually let us go in… but she let us watch from the gallery. She's amazing. I think I'm in love with my resident."

"So which one is it? Her or Dr. Avery?"

"Both." She winks and I start to laugh right along with her. "You can't sit here and tell me that he is not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, though. He's beautiful…"

"Ehh… he's okay." I shrug my shoulders.

"What are you, gay?" She playfully taps me in my shoulder.

"No! I just… I don't really think he's THAT good-looking. He's attractive, but not THAT attractive. I've seen cute guys around here, sure. But I'm not really here for cute boys. Especially cute guys that I have no chance with."

"Who do you have your eyes on?"

"…Dr. Kepner took us on a tour of the hospital and I saw this cute guy in OB. He was pretty…" I press my lips into a hard line and try to keep from busting out in laughter. "He was pretty damn sexy." I shrug. "And this other doctor that I saw today was cute, but he was kind of… douchey, I think. But all the hot guys are douches, so…"

"Do either of your cute guys have names?"

"…I don't know the guy from OB. I caught a glimpse of him. And the other guy is…" I lick my lips and pick up my Styrofoam cup again. "I dunno, I guess Dr. Karev isn't that bad looking. He's cute." I take a long, drowned out sip of my soda and wait for Steph's reaction.

"….Yeah, you know that guy's married, right?" She shoots me down. I look at her with a puzzled look on my face. "Dr. Karev is so married… did you really think he wasn't? There's a blonde girl that works up in Derm. I heard through the grapevine that she's his wife… or soon-to-be wife. He's either married or engaged, one of the two."

"…Blonde girl that works up in Dermatology… never seen her." I shrug. "He seemed like an asshole to me anyway. Either he's an ass or he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today."

She offers me her half-eaten bag of potato chips that I gladly accept. "Well like you said… all cute guys are douchey."


	2. More Importantly

"It should be illegal to be this exhausted." Before she even starts to put her street clothes back on, Stephanie immediately collapses down on the bench in front of our lockers and puts her head in her hands. I utter a soft snicker and open up my locker to grab the clothes I had on before I came here. "Go 'head and laugh but I'm being completely serious. I'm too young to be this tired." She pushes her curly hair back out of her face and sighs. We seem to be the only ones in the locker room at the moment. We were supposed to be off a couple hours ago, but both of our residents had to stay a little later to deal with post-op patients so we had to stay as well. "You think it'd be frowned upon if I just slept here?"

"Why would you want to?" I ask her, giggling. I take my jeans out of my locker and put them down on the bench. As soon as I untie the drawstrings on my scrub pants, the locker room door opens and a guy walks through it. Just my luck that a boy just so happened to wander in here just as I was getting naked. "…Why would you want to?" I ask Stephanie again, redirecting my attention to the conversation we were having. "Wouldn't you rather sleep in your bed?"

The boy that came in here with us goes to the other side of the room and opens up his locker. Innocuously, my attention goes over to him. It's not that I think he's cute or anything of that nature; I just want to size up my competition. He has broad, stocky shoulders and muscles that boast the fact that he obviously works out. His skin is dark; lighter than Stephanie's but still dark. He sure looks like he means business. He's definitely not here to mess around. I think I like that.

"Of course I'd rather sleep in my bed. But I have to stay awake for the drive home before I make it to my bed." Stephanie takes off her shirt and grabs her jacket from her locker. "I only live ten minutes across town… and I don't know if I'm gonna make it." She jokes as she zips up her jacket.

"I feel you on that." I button my jeans then zip them up. I take off my shirt and fold it up neatly. "I don't even think I'm going to eat when I get home. I think I'm just going to jump in the shower and go right to sleep." I put my green shirt back on and adjust it on my body. I probably won't eat when I get home to be honest. I've been thinking all day about what I can possibly feed myself when I get home and I'm quite clueless. I don't have anything in my fridge except for a couple bottles of water. I don't have anything to eat at home. But whatever, it's not the first time I've gone to bed hungry. If I don't think about how hungry I am, the hunger eventually goes away.

I gingerly tuck my scrubs away in my locker and shut it. I grab my car keys off the bench in front of me and slide them on my ring finger for safe keeping. Just as I finish getting dressed, Stephanie finishes too. The boy that was in here with us walks quite fast to the door…like he's in a hurry to get out of here. "…That's Shane. He's like… super concentrated. He doesn't want to make friends or anything. He's all about the work." Steph grabs her own car keys and starts walking towards the door with me.

"I can respect that." I shrug my shoulders and push the door open. "He seems like he'd be super serious… that's why I didn't even bother talking to him." _Wow, that probably just made me sound like a super bitch. _"I… I mean, I'm not really that good at making friends anyway… so it's just like… why would I bother talking to someone that seems like they have no interest in getting to know me anyway?" I attempt to make the comment I just made sound a little less bitchy. I didn't mean to come off like that.

"You seem alright with making friends to me." Stephanie shrugs her shoulders at me and keeps walking. "Are you hard to get along with, Jo?" Her tone rises to an inquisitive manner. What an odd question to ask somebody…

"Me?" I stumble over my word choices a little bit. "I don't… I don't know? I don't think I am. I think I'm pretty easy to get along with." We both stop at the time clock and I slide my name badge through the slot to clock out first. "Is there a reason why you're asking me this?" I tuck my ID badge into my back pocket and wait for her to clock out to see what her answer is.

She slides her badge through the slot too and starts walking with me again. "Not really. I was just wondering. You seem like a pretty chill person but you said that you have a hard time making friends…so it just made me wonder if maybe you're secretly a bitch or something."

"…Oh." I tuck a loose strand of my hair behind my ear and glance over at her while we're walking through the surgical floor to get to the elevators. "…Do I look like a bitch? You can be honest… do I really come across as bitchy or unapproachable?"

"No… god, no." She shakes her head and her glasses wiggle when she does, which in turn, makes me crack a smile. "I men like… when I first saw you at the lockers this morning, I thought that you were probably a little bit stuck up because of the things I heard about you and the way you looked… but bitchy? No. I try not to judge a person's character before I've had the opportunity to talk to them."

"People are talking about me?" I step inside the elevator and lean against the wall. "Are they saying bad things?" _I tried so hard to make a positive impression on everybody, though. What does she mean by "the things she's heard about me"? _"Who was saying stuff?"

"You can calm down." She puts her hand up at me to chill me out as she pushes the first floor button with the hand she's not holding out. "It's nothing bad. It's the usual stuff… the trying to get to know coworkers kind of talk. Leah had just said that she heard that the brunette girl went to Harvard, that's all. Then hearing that you might've gone to Harvard made me think that maybe you're a little bit entitled and arrogant, but you're clearly not."

I just nod my head softly. "I did, though. I did go to Harvard…and Princeton." _Was that braggy? _"But I dunno… you tell me. Am I hard to get along with?" The elevator opens back up and lets us out on the first floor. In unison, we both step out of the elevator together and start walking towards the door that'll lead us directly out to the workers' parking lot.

"Harvard AND Princeton? What are you, a genius?"

"…Borderline." I nod and wink at her to signify that I'm just joking and I'm not that cocky and overconfident.

She genuinely laughs at my joke and playfully taps me on my shoulder. "You're definitely not hard to get along with. I'm finding it easy to like you." As if we're on the same wavelength, she follows me to the same quadrant of the parking lot and when she pushes the button on her keychain, the taillights on a silver Mercedes flash. _She's getting into a Mercedes and I'm getting into a beat up Grand Am. Embarrassing much? _"See you tomorrow?" Just as she gets to her car, she stops walking and turns to me. I keep walking to hide my harmless jealousy though.

"Yeah." I nod and glance off into the distance when I reach my car. She's only parked two cars down from me, so it's not like we're yelling across the parking lot at each other. I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help but be embarrassed that I'm about to drive off in my shitty little car while she's about to drive off in…that. "See you… first thing tomorrow morning." I push my key into the lock on my door and twist it. Sighing, I climb into my car and shut the door. I put my key in the ignition and just sit there for a second.

I've never been "jealous" of anyone's material things in my life before. I've been jealous, sure. But of the things that I know I should have but can't. I've never felt jealousy towards someone's greater fortune before. Maybe I'm not exactly jealous of Stephanie's bad ass car. Maybe I'm just a little bit embarrassed for myself because she's driving that and I'm driving this. Does that constitute as jealousy?

Drawing myself out of my nagging, senseless thoughts, I twist the key in the ignition and start my car. The engine chugs as it often does before it starts but this time, it just doesn't turn over. Before I even waste my energy getting irritated with it, I try again. Again, the engine chugs and refuses to turn over. "…You've gotta be fucking kidding me." I mumble to myself and twist the key again….still nothing. I huff and smack my hand against the steering wheel. _Should've known something was going to go wrong today. I've had way too good of a day. _I pull the key out of the ignition and take a couple deep breaths before I escalate.

"Please start…." _Am I really talking to a car? I think I've just reached a new low. _I shove the key back in and twist it. It chugs again then falls flat. "This is just fan-fucking-tastic." In my haste, I open up my door and get out. I bend down to the spot next to the driver's seat and pop the hood of it. I circle around to the front and look around at what I can kind of see through the hospital lights. It's pitch black out here with the exception of the lights coming off the blue and silver hospital sign. It's probably my battery that's giving me an issue. I've needed a new battery for about two years now but do you know how expensive those things run? I look around the parking lot. _And there's nobody here I can ask for a jump._

"Are you okay?" That familiar mellifluous voice calls out to me from out of the blue, which makes me jump clear out of my skin. When I turn my head around to see where she came from, I see her pulled up in the exit lane with her window rolled down to talk to me. The silver Mercedes is even more beautiful from this angle. "Do you want like… a ride home or something?"

"…I just need a jump." I lean against my shitty car and shove my tongue in my cheek. "It won't start." I really don't want to accept her ride home. I really, really, really don't want to. I just hate feeling like I owe somebody something, almost as much as I hate feeling like I need a favor. But I'm not really sure if I have a choice. I doubt she has jumper cables and even if she did, it's not like I know how to jump a car. _I'll just tell her that I already called somebody to come pick me up. That way I don't have to flat out reject her and she won't feel bad for leaving me. _"I already cal…" I stop myself and heave a hard sigh. _How the hell am I getting home without her? _"…Please?" I ask.

"Yeah, no problem. Come on." I hear the locks in her car shift when she unlocks the door for me. I slam down the hood of my junky car and grab my belongings out of the passenger's side. I guess I'm fine with leaving my car here for the night. It's not like somebody's gonna try to steal it. It's not worth a damn penny so honestly if they put forth the effort to steal it, they can just have it. Whatever.

I sling my purse over my shoulder and open up her car door. Very politely, I climb inside and put my seatbelt on. "Thank you." I put my purse between my legs and stressfully comb through my hair with my fingers. "My piece of shit car won't start and I don't really know anybody around here that would have jumper cables. I really ought to get a new battery…" Her car is just as nice on the inside as it is on the outside and that's the truth. "So thank you."

"It's really not a problem." She takes the gearshift out of park and puts it in drive. "I would've felt bad if I saw you while I was on my way home and I didn't ask if you were okay; especially since I actually know and like you." She speeds out of the parking lot and onto the main road that leads us out of hospital grounds. "If you were like… basically anybody else, I would've left you." She admits and I laugh at that. I like how blunt she is. "Does loud music bother you?"

"Not at all." I look out my window and gaze at the space needle. A month in Seattle and I'm still not used to how beautiful it is at night. When the skyline is all lit up and pretty? Yeah, I could just stare out the window all the time. It's just so pretty. As soon as I tell her that loud music doesn't bother me, she turns her radio up to a near deafening volume. And as if the bass of the song that's playing isn't enough to make the floor of the car shake, Stephanie playfully starts bobbing her head pretty hard and singing. I really, really like her. I just like how open she is.

She looks over and catches me staring at her. I wasn't staring to be nosy or anything; I was just trying to figure out exactly how she manages to be so laidback and easy going. "Don't judge me. This is how I unwind after long days." She shouts over the music but manages to keep her tone something that's still friendly and not at all demeaning. "Where do you live?" She asks.

I raise my voice so she can hear me over the music without having to adjust it for me. "You can just drop me off by the Seven Eleven downtown." I don't want to tell her that I live in the Ridgeview Apartments. I can only take but so much embarrassment for one day, so I'll just walk home from there. The Seven Eleven is literally up a hill and down the street from the apartments. I'll walk home.

"What?!" She lightheartedly giggles and keeps driving along down a straight road.

"I said drop me off at the Seven Eleven downtown!" I scream over the music.

"Oh!" She screams back and turns the radio up some more. _She's gonna blow her speakers out. _"Sorry, but I just can't listen to this song unless it's on full volume!" She's right about that. This song is just one of those songs that you have to blast at full volume and deal with the consequences later. It's almost impossible and unbearable to listen to this type of song without blasting it with not a care in the world. Stephanie starts to sing along but I can't even hear her over the music.

I don't usually sing around people I don't know. If I sing around you, I'm probably really comfortable with you. My singing voice is awful and I don't need to be made fun of, so I just don't sing unless I'm alone studying or doing housework. So while I stare out the window, I mumble the chorus of the song to myself and diligently wait patiently for her to reach the Seven Eleven. "Boom clap. The sound of my heart, the beat goes on and on and on and on and boom clap. You make me feel good… come on to me, come on to me now." As she's approaching where I know the Seven Eleven is, I grab my purse from between my legs and get ready to get out.

Stephanie tampers down the volume of the radio and puts her turn signal on to get to where the Seven Eleven is. "Okay, so where do I go from here?"

"You can just drop me off here. I'll walk from here, it's not that far." _Does that make me sound weird? _"I just don't want you to go out of your way anymore. I can walk from here." I put my hand on the door handle and wait for her to stop the car completely.

"It's fine… I'm not really out of my way. I don't like far off from here, actually. Where do you live?" She asks me again.

"Stephanie, it's okay. I wanna walk from here." _She's awfully pushy. I just really don't want to show her that I live where I live. Ridgeview Apartments are literally the WORST section of Seattle and I know for a fact that she'd judge me if she knew I lived there. She'll probably think I'm a drug addict, because I'm literally the ONLY non-druggie that lives in the apartments. _

"I'm not gonna let you walk from here, Jo. What kind of sense would that make?" She turns her radio completely off and just looks at me. "If you don't tell me where then I'm just gonna take you back to my house with me. I won't be able to live with myself if I let you walk home from here. It's late, it's dark, there are hardly any streetlights on this side of town and you're pretty. I know what most guys would do to you if they crossed you alone in a dark alley."

"I'll be fine. I'm a big girl." _I know what most guys would do to me, too. And I know what I can do to most guys. Seriously, if there's ever been a person that can walk home in the dark, it's me. _"Nobody's gonna touch me and it's not even that far of a walk." I pull the handle of her door to get out but she locks me in. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?" She shakes her head at me and her face reads seriousness. I blow out a huff of air and roll my eyes at her. "Fine." I look down at my purse in my hands. "…Ridgeview. The apartments. Just go there."

"…What are you doing at Ridgeview? Boyfriend live there or something?" She turns her car around so she can drive up the hill that'll lead me to my house. I glare at her through the corner of my eye. Don't get me wrong. I really like Stephanie and I'm super glad that I met her and I'm glad that she's my friend and I'm grateful that she drove me home. But with all due respect, I don't think she knows me well enough to start judging me for where I live. And quite frankly, it's none of her goddamn business why I live in Ridgeview.

Call me a coldhearted bitch, but I'm not the type that'll just warm up to somebody in no time. I've just been through some pretty heavy shit in my day and I learned the hard way that the more you open up to someone, the more opportunities they have to hurt you. You tell them one thing and they use it against you. You start to like them and they decide that means that you're committed for life…and then they think that means they're entitled to have you. And then shit just gets bad for me and then I end up in places I have no business being. Yeah….all that happens when you open up to somebody. So it's not that I don't like Stephanie—because I do. I just don't think it's appropriate for me to even let her in yet.

"Is there somebody in there for you to go home to?" I can tell that she's judging me. She's looking out the window at the apartment building I told her to stop in front of and she sees that there are no lights on and she sees that there is a group of boys standing outside of it and she's JUDGING ME.

"Are you this damn pushy with all of your friends or just me?" I snap at her. _Crap. I'm sorry. I can't be such a bitch…she road me home. _"…Sorry." I mutter. "…I…" I put my hand on the door handle again. "I live alone and I live here. It's not… it's not the greatest, but…" I lick my lip and bite my tongue with my lips. "It's affordable." I put my purse on my shoulder and open up the door. "Thanks again for the ride home, Stephanie. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You can call me Steph… and like I said, it's not a problem." I can tell that I just slightly offended her by snapping at her but I really am sorry for that but I'm not gonna keep apologizing to her. Either she can accept it or not, I don't care. "Are you gonna need a ride to work tomorrow morning? Yanno, since your car is still at the—"

"Shit." I interrupt her. "Yeah… would you mind? I'll be outside here by 6:00…"

"I'll be back to get you at 6:00 then."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"So I'm thinking pink Chrysanthemums… all over the pews. You know how the pews down at the church have those velvet ropes to separate them? We can pin the flowers along those just to add some color to it. You think that would be nice?" She excitedly stuffs the notebook underneath my nose and shows me her little sketch. I'm actually quite tired of this. It's been the same thing for the last month and it's starting to get redundant. Every other day she changes the colors. Yesterday it was orange, the day before that was beige. Today it's pink and tomorrow it'll probably be yellow. "You see how the ropes curve? And I already talked to the—Alex! Are you listening to me?"

"Hmm? Mhm." I lazily nod my head and pretend to be very interested in this. Honestly, it wouldn't quite phase me if we just went down to the courthouse, signed the papers and spent the night at home with a box of takeout chicken. But I know the kind of person I'm marrying and I know for sure that she would have a conniption fit if we didn't at least invite our friends and her family to it. If it makes her happy then I guess a church wedding isn't that bad. "Why don't we just have all the colors of the rainbow, babe? That way we don't have to keep changing the dress and tux color." I catch a strand of her beautiful blonde hair in my fingers and tuck it behind her ear.

"…Oh my goodness, that's GENIUS!" Her cheeks flush bright red and she throws her arms around my neck. Really, it's genius? I was being facetious… "My dress can be pink, and then I can put Mere in an orange dress… Cristina would look really nice in red, don't you think? Babe, you're GENIUS!" She rewards my "geniusness" with two rough kisses on my lips.

Carefully, I shift the weight off my left leg so I'm more comfortable and rest my hand on her leg. It's not like she's heavy sitting on my lap, but all her weight was on one leg and it was starting to hurt. "Let's take a break from wedding crap for a minute." I grab the tablet of sketchpad paper that's been glued to her hand since I popped the question last month and put it down on our bedside table. "We have three more months to do the planning, Iz." To further ease her into the idea of leaving the wedding planning alone for a little while, I plant a kiss on the back of her neck. "Tell me about your day… how was work?"

"Same old, same old." Her tiny little fingers begin to play with the hair on my arms. "What about your day? How'd your interns do?"

"They're idiots, but…" I put my arms around her waist. "I guess it's my job to de-idiotify them, isn't it?" She nods her head and gives me another kiss. "They were too scared to round this morning so one of Kepner's losers had to help me round."

"Are any of them smart?" Her thumb grazes the bottom of my lip. "Or is this just you going back to your old asshole ways? I hate that you're a dick towards anyone that isn't me. It gets old." She kisses me again and I kiss her back. "But it makes me feel special."

"Yeah, well…" I chuckle. "But no. None of them are smart. The idiot of Kepner's that helped me round was the only one that showed competence, but I can tell that she doesn't know her ass from her elbow either."

"How can you tell that from just one day, babe? You should give them a chance…" Again, she kisses me. "You weren't always a badass third year resident. You had to start somewhere. Poor girl is just trying to learn."

"She's a snooty little princess that doesn't belong there. She wore makeup to work… who wears makeup to work? Especially surgeons?"

"….Well yeah, she's probably a snooty little princess then."

"Exactly." I sigh and glance over at the clock. "I should probably go shower and stuff and get ready to go to bed. Early morning tomorrow for me."

"Yeah, same here." She gets off of my lap and goes into the bathroom. I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. Sometimes, Izzie's right about me. Maybe I should stop judging the snooty little princess before I get to know her. But she should've made a better first impression. She wore makeup to practice medicine. That SCREAMS snobby to me. But I'll give her a chance. I was a crappy intern once too.

Enough thinking about the stupid intern idiots. I have more important things to think about… like what color my tuxedo is going to be on my wedding day.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I'm glad you guys seem to be liking my new story! I think this story will be better than my other one, because this is more my forte. I'm not that good with angsty teenager stuff like Lucky Me was. This kind of story is more of my forte so I'm more in my element while writing it.

I'd like to keep it T rated, but I said that I'm going to include some smut in this story, so obviously I can't put smut in it and keep it T rated. I'm not gonna change the rating of the story until I start with the smut, though. It'll be T rated for a little while because the smut isn't coming for a while. Just don't forget about the story when I change it to an M rating. You know how M rated stories don't show up in the regular updates page? They only show up when you filter them for M rated stories. So a lot of people don't notice when I update an M rated story because it doesn't show up. So just keep an eye out when I change the rating. I'll warn you before I change it, though. I promise.

So, any comments (good or bad) feel free to drop them in my PMs or in the reviews. Seriously guys, if you don't like something, just tell me about myself.

-flawlesspeasant


	3. Offers

"She changed the colors again, you know." I tear the aluminum foil off from around my breakfast and take a bite out of the corner. The breakfast burritos aren't that good here but I'm starving and the only alternative is some type of casserole. I wish it was Wednesday. They have bacon on Wednesdays. I stop walking for a second to give Mere time to catch up with me. She's busy putting sugar in her coffee at the coffee station. "Something about pink flowers on the velvet ropes, but I think I turned her on to the idea of multicolored."

"I wish you guys would make up your mind so I know what color I'm going to be forced into wearing." Without stirring her coffee to dissolve the sugar, she takes a sip and stands next to me. "Why's she so against white anyway? I thought she wanted to do the whole traditional thing yet she doesn't want to wear white?"

"She thinks white is too plain." I shrug my shoulders and take another bite of my breakfast. "If it was up to me, I swear I'd drive down to Vegas and do it in 24 hours…but you know Iz. She wants it to be all girly and crap." I take the last bite of my breakfast burrito before I toss it in the trashcan. "You know it doesn't matter to me. You know I wouldn't care if we pulled a you and Shepherd and went down to City Hall."

"If you don't want a wedding so bad then why don't you just tell her?" We're on the same wavelength because we both start walking towards the cafeteria exit at the same time. "I'm sick of listening to you act like a little bitch-baby over the wedding. At first I thought it was just jitters but I can clearly see that you're not into marrying her."

"Wrong again." I mumble. "I'm into marrying her…otherwise I wouldn't have asked her to marry me in the first place. I just don't really picture myself in the black tux reciting wedding vows in front of her family but not mine." I really do mean that. If I didn't want to get married I wouldn't have even asked. I know that I want to marry Iz…I know that for sure. I can't really explain how I know this, I just do. It's like this feeling that I got one day. The feeling that I could possibly spend the rest of my life with her. I get that feeling every time I see her. But I wish that we didn't have to have a big wedding. "I wanna make her happy, Mere. You know she hasn't been happy since all that stuff went down… and if a big wedding makes her happy then we're having a big wedding. So you're just gonna have to deal with me bitching to you about it."

"I'm just saying." As we walk past the scheduling station, she picks up two electronic charts, hands me one and keeps the other for herself. "I've been around my fair share of failed marriages and jumping into it isn't the best thing to do, obviously."

"Stop trying to talk me out of it."

"That's SO not what I'm doing. You and Izzie are… soulmates or whatever. You guys belong together. But that doesn't mean you have to marry her just because she's a little messed up over her health issues. She's gonna be fine, which is why I don't get it. It's not like if you don't marry her right now she's gonna die out of nowhere. She's been cancer-free for months and the chances of it coming back are slim to none. I'm just trying to see your logic here."

"That's just it." I check the time on my watch. I have to round pretty soon. "I love 'er. And you never know when crap's gonna happen, so if I'm this sure about wanting to spend my life with her, the sooner the better." I look at my watch again. "I'm gonna be late for rounds. I'm on Robbins' service and she specifically asked for me and just one intern for the day." I lock up the electronic chart and put it underneath my armpit so I can walk away. "See ya later."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"I was walking by OB today and I think I saw the sexy guy." Steph tosses me back my hairbrush that I let her use a moment ago. "Is he light-skinned? With a shaved head and his eyes are like… brown?" She combs her curly hair back with her fingers and puts it up in a loose, curly, thick ponytail. Because I'm too busy concentrating on getting my hair up into a ponytail that won't annoy me all day, I just nod the answer to her questions rather than talk aloud to her. Her eyes widen a little and she cracks a smile. "Yes, Jo. Yes." She nods and adjusts her glasses on her nose. "Yes. Yes, that is a fine, fine, fine, FINE man."

"I told you he was a sexy one." I pull two pieces of my ponytail to tighten it and slam my locker door shut. I sit down on the bench in front of our lockers and tap on the wood with my fingertips. "Did you look at the board? Who's your resident for the day?"

"It doesn't say. I think we're supposed to just wait in here for the day." She walks over closer to me and stands right next to where I'm sitting. "Can I touch your hair? You have something in it… and I don't want you to feel like I'm molesting you if I touch it without your permission."

I snicker lightly and shrug my shoulders. "Go for it." As soon as I give her permission, she pulls a strand of my hair and yanks it out. "…Ouch?"

"You have either paint… or blood in your hair. One of the two." She presents me with the piece she just pulled out and I take it off her to examine it. I wasn't around paint lately and I haven't even done so much as a single suture since I've been here. It can't be blood and it can't be paint. What the hell is in my hair? "I got it all out but it was pretty caked on this piece here."

"…I think it's fingernail polish. I painted my toenails red last night and it went all bad when I sneezed in the process of painting." I run my finger along the gunk she just pulled out of my hair. "Yeah, that's nail polish." I toss the strand of hair on the floor and slouch while I look around. I honestly think Steph caught my drift from last night because when she picked me up this morning, she didn't say anything about where I live, why I live there and how I live. She didn't say anything. Instead, we started to talk about how much she loved being on Dr. Yang's service yesterday. She thinks she wants cardio as her specialty but I keep trying to tell her that residents DON'T specialize yet. She's completely in love with the idea of cardiothoracic surgery though.

"…Jo, can we talk?" Steph's voice is different when she approaches me this time. It's softer, a little bit more serene and very serious. _I thought we were already talking? _"There's something I've been meaning to ask you, actually. It's something that you'll probably have to think about, and you shouldn't feel obligated to say yes to me, you can obviously say no… and I'll give you time to think about it. I don't really need an answer until next week and don't think I'm being pushy or annoying because of what happened last night, I would've asked you anyway but it just made it a lot more fitting and…" She's ranting and I think it's because she's nervous. She shouldn't really be nervous. I'm not exactly a hard person to talk to.

"Just spit it out, Steph." Because she's standing up and I'm sitting down, I turn my head and look up at her. "What's going on?" My mind just starts filtering through the things I could've possibly done wrong. That's always been a habit of mine. It doesn't matter what it is, I always do it. I always feel the need to think about what I could possibly get into trouble for when somebody tells me that they have to talk to me. From where I come from, talking is never really a good thing. "Did I do something to piss you off?" I just ask her right off the bat.

"No!" She shakes her head really fast. "I just can't spit it out like that because I don't really know how to approach it. I don't really want to make you mad, you know? I just want you to know the facts. I'm not judging you or anything…let's be clear about that. I just like you a lot. Not… NOT in the lesbian kind of way but in the…. If we went to the same high school growing up, you'd definitely be someone I'd hang out with kind of way."

"…You're not making any sense to me…" I'm not stupid and I have a really good way of reading people. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up around a bunch of shitty people so I have really good radar for shitty people, or maybe it's just my intuition. But I can always tell when somebody's trying to make a point and I usually figure out the point they're trying to make before they even make it. I think she wants me to… "Go 'head and say it, Steph. I already know what you're gonna ask me…"

"Would you please?" A look of relief washes over her face and I just look away from her. I'm not angry by any means, but I'm a tad bit annoyed. I'm annoyed that she just put me on the spot like this and even more annoyed that I don't know how to say no. I can't afford it though so no has to be the answer. "I have an extra room and I was just gonna move somewhere smaller but the smaller place I have my eye on is a hundred bucks more a month than where I'm at right now. But I just have this extra room that's collecting dust and you said yourself that your apartment is a piece of crap…"

I close my eyes and throw my head up to the ceiling. Do you know how badly I wish I could accept this offer? ANYTHING is better than my apartment. But if I do it, I'll have to split the bills with her, I'll have to help her pay the rent and everything. I can hardly afford the $150 rent I pay right now at my shitty apartment and $150 is CHEAP. "Steph…. I can't." Like I said, I have pretty good radar for detecting people that are full of shit. I know that Stephanie is a good person and I know that she's not a psychotic psychopath or anything like that. Yeah, I hardly know her but I hardly knew my college roommate either. I'd LOVE to move out of my shitty place but I really can't swing it right now. And I don't really want to explain that to her right now. "I don't have—"

"Edwards, you're with Yang today. Go up to the CCU, she's waiting." Interrupting the conversation I'm having with Steph is the chief of surgery. I haven't learned his name yet but I do know that he's the chief. I really haven't heard anybody refer to him as anything other than "the chief" so his name isn't something that I've caught yet. He has orange-ish hair and a really muscular build. I squint and look at the name on his white coat. _Dr. Owen Hunt. _Okay. Hunt. "Wilson, you're on Robbins' service, go up to Pediatrics and find Karev… he'll let you know what do from there." After he tells me where to go, he walks away from the section of the locker room that Steph and I were sitting at and goes over to the other section to give the other interns their instructions for the day.

"….I…." I stand up and fix my scrubs so I look presentable. "We'll talk about it at lunch, okay?" I dismiss the topic to Steph and she willingly nods. _Now I have until lunch to figure out how I'm going to tell her that I'm broke without sounding like a pity case._

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"I know a couple months ago, you were all still in the safety of whatever medical school you went to, and I trust that you were all trained exceptionally well—well enough to get into this program." Robbins is usually very cheerful and peppy and so bright that it could make you want to strangle her. But the way she's standing here talking to the idiots and explaining to them what they're about to witness, she's exactly the opposite. Her tone is firm and serious, just like it needs to be. "But this is NOTHING like med school. What you're about to walk into is real…and it is dangerous and I don't want anything less than serious surgical interns, so if you don't think you can handle it go down to the pit right now and stay out of the way." She turns around and elbows the blue button that automatically opens the door to the NICU.

Nobody out of the group of interns left. Funny, because I think at least five of them should be in the pit right now. I really think that there's only three out of the current group that can handle Peds. It's rough…it's a tough service. I like to think of myself as a strong kind of guy, too. After all, I got through college on a wrestling scholarship and I still bench 325, but some days I'm not even strong enough to handle the toughness that is Pediatrics. Still and yet, the group of idiots follows Robbins inside the NICU and I can tell by the looks on their faces that they're too soft to be in here. There are only two of them that are keeping a straight face right now; the short one with shoulder-length blonde hair and light blue/grey eyes looks a little bit bored with it in here and the tall one with sun-kissed, tan skin and a long brunette ponytail looks like she's really interested in being here. If I can see that a few of the interns can't handle Peds then of course Robbins can see it too. Nevertheless, the group and I all follow Robbins over to the biggest incubator in the NICU.

"Who's presenting?" Because there are parents that are sitting right next to the incubator that contains the baby, Robbins switches the tone of her voice back to something preppy and cheerful. I open up the electronic chart so I can make sure that whichever one of the idiots that presents gives the correct information.

"Natalie Simpson, 15 hours old, born with her intestines on the outside of her body. …Two hours post op from having a colostomy bag attached." One of the interns that looked incredibly uninterested in being here takes care of the presenting. She's tall; taller than the other tall one and she has hair that falls in gentle waves around the middle of her back. I have half a mind to tell her to get her hair up in a ponytail, but this is still Robbins' teaching moment so I'll rest my case for now.

"Great job, Dr. Murphy." Robbins opens up the incubator and takes the top of it down so she can get inside it. "And why can't we just take her in to surgery right now to correct the issue?"

The blonde one that's apparently named "Dr. Murphy" speaks up again. "Because the tissue is still too swollen to insert back into the body at the moment."

"And what would happen if we were to put swollen tissue back into the body of a human this tiny?" Robbins retorts. The blonde chick doesn't have an answer for this one. I turn and look at all of them. They all have puzzled looks on their faces, like Robbins and I are speaking some foreign language to them and they've never even taken so much as a high school course in biology. "Can any of you tell me what kind of complications the patient could face if we stuffed swollen tissue into her body at this point in time right now?"

"….It wouldn't fit." The tall brunette standing in the back actually speaks up. I give her a quick look that lets her know she's on the right track so she should continue. "First off, the tissue is too swollen to fit inside and if it was put back before the swelling went down to a normal size, her body could reject the organs… and the tissue could become necrotic and she could turn septic and possibly go into shock."

I clear my throat and opt to test the brunette's knowledge some more. "If you were the attending on this case, what would you recommend?" I ask her.

She looks at me like she's Bambi and I just shot her mother. "I…I would…" She looks around the room as if there are answers hidden in the machinery or something. "I would monitor her…give her anti-rejection meds periodically to ensure that when the organs are of decent enough size to put back inside her body, she won't reject them. I would make sure her vitals remain stable and monitor the swelling on the organs as well as the health of the organs to make sure the tissue doesn't die." She looks at me with desperation in her eyes, like she wants me to tell her that she's right and throw her a bone like she's a dog.

"Nice job." I mutter.

"Well done, Wilson." Robbins hands the brunette her pink stethoscope and steps aside. "Why don't you come over here and check the baby's vitals?" The brunette nods her head and stands next to the incubator. "You check a tiny human's vitals the same way you'd check a big human's vitals…just be a lot gentler." She puts her hand atop the intern's hand and guides her to where the heartbeat would be the strongest. "Real easy, now…" I'm actually learning something by watching Robbins teach right now. I'm not learning anything by watching her teach the idiot how to check a baby's heartbeat—I already know how to do that. I'm learning how to be a teacher from watching her. I guess if I don't treat the idiots like the idiots I think they are, I could really teach them a thing or two. I don't attribute the kind of surgeon I'm becoming entirely to Arizona, by the way. She's a big part of why I'm deciding to stick with Peds, but she's not the reason I ever went into it. I do have Dr. Montgomery to thank for that matter as well, but whatever.

"Dr. Karev." Robbins takes her stethoscope off the brunette girl and puts it back around her neck. I rip myself out of my lazy thoughts and turn my attention completely to her. I mumble a "hmm?" to let her know that I'm listening to whatever she's calling my attention for. "I want you to go ahead and take Dr. Wilson with you for the day. I need you to go check up on our jaundice baby and our triplets then I want you to prep our pyloric baby for surgery. Teach Dr. Wilson all that you can…I'm gonna teach the rest of these guys a thing or two with Natalie here."

"Alright. Come on." I motion for the brunette to follow me and she quickly does. "Don't get in my way, alright? I have a lot to do today and I don't have room for distractions or errors." I lead her over to the gloving station and motion for her to grab some. She grabs a pair of pink gloves and shoves them on her hands. "I'm going to teach you a couple things today but I don't need you asking unnecessary, stupid questions. And I don't need you overstepping your boundaries. You are an INTERN…you're nothing. You're at the bottom of the surgical food chain. Got it?"

"I got it." She folds her arms and follows everything that I do.

"What'd you say your name was again? I wasn't paying attention." I hold the electronic chart in front of my face and scroll through it to find the chart for Jacob Weston…the jaundice baby.

"I didn't…" Nosily, she stands on her tip toes to read through the chart with me. "But it's Jo. Jo Wilson…"

"Alright Jo Wilson…follow me…and don't touch anything." When I find the chart I was looking for, I put the tablet underneath my arm and walk over to the west wing of the NICU. "I don't know if you have a specialty in mind yet, but just to be honest, you'll probably be spending a lot of time on specialties that you're not interested in." I stop walking as quickly as I am so she can keep up. "So for reference, just in case you spend more time on Peds, this is obviously the NICU. The NICU is split into four wings. The north wing, west wing, south wing and the east wing. Each wing is a different level, the north wing is for the babies that are the worst off. The north wing is what we just came from. The west wing are for babies that can be discharged soon, the east wing is for preemies that still need a few more surgeries and the south wing is where we treat the drug babies. Got that?" She nods her head. "What did I just say, then?"

"North wing is bad, where the bad babies are kept. West wing is good, where the babies that are going home soon are. The east wing is for preemies that have the usual preemie problems and need surgery and the south wing is for drug addicted babies. I got it."

"Quick learner." I commend her and get to the incubator that we were in search of. "You know why this baby is in darkness with a blue light?"

"…Because the UV light helps keep his bilirubin levels intact. He's jaundiced so he has too much bilirubin, right? So you want to kill off some of it?" She's got a good recollection memory. She must've gone to a kick ass med school for these complicated terms and diagnoses and treatments to be drilled into her brain like that.

"Nice." I turn off the UV light inside the incubator and open it up. "You have a specialty in mind yet?" I take my stethoscope from around my neck and put it in my ears. "You'd be good in Peds, I think. Most people think Peds is a blow-off specialty but it's actually pretty tough. You and the other little blonde one are the only ones that could take it."

"Who, Dr. Brooks? I don't know much about her, but…" She watches in pure amazement as I detach the baby inside the incubator from his UV radiation. "Um… no. I don't really have a specific specialty in mind just yet. Where I… Where I went school, they beat it into your head to go into your internship with an open mind because residents and interns DON'T specialize until their third year. So I haven't really thought about a specialty."

"Oh, really? Dr. Webber spent a year beating it into our heads that interns and residents don't specialize… your school must've been kick ass. They don't teach you that everywhere." I briskly take the baby's temperature and read it. "…Where'd you go to school at?"

"…Um…" She takes a step back and watches me. "H…Princeton first… then Harvard Medical. I guess it was good." She shrugs it off like Harvard and Princeton are shitty schools. "That's like… the first thing I learned in med school. Don't specialize until your third year. That and how to bag a person. I learned those on my first day."

Oh, great. Robbins stuck me with the bitch of the group. She couldn't have given me someone humble that had to at least work towards becoming a surgeon. No, she had to stick me with the rich snob that went to Ivy League schools and has daddy wipe her ass with dollar bills. _She would stick me with this… this… this princess._ "I would comment on how expensive your school bills must be, but I guess it doesn't hold much water to someone that turns their nose up to a five dollar bill. Daddy wouldn't let his little girl be in debt, huh?"

"…I manage." She shrugs her shoulders. "I'm not as far in debt as you probably think. I mean, yeah I'm in debt, but it's not—"

"Daddy taking too long to pay off your bills?" She wrinkles her eyebrows at me when I say that. "We're done here. Follow me again, Princess."

"I'm not…" She starts but doesn't finish. "I'm coming."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Anybody else want to trade services?" I slam down my lunch tray which only contains a wrapped up hamburger and a boat of French fries. I spent the five bucks that was supposed to go towards my water bill on lunch. I'm starving so it was necessary for me to eat something today. "Dr. Karev is the biggest asshole I've ever encountered in my entire life." I pull out the chair and sit down across from Steph. "He spent the entire morning calling me 'princess.' Like I'm a fucking dog or something? I'm not a fuckin' dog… why does he give me little bitch-names like I'm a dog? And I'm not even a princess, what even is that? I spent the whole freakin' furkin' morning listening to him insult me!" I grab two French fries and stuff them in my mouth.

"I am NOT trading with you… nope." Steph's eating a bag of Doritos. "Did I mention how much I love Dr. Yang?" She chomps a mouthful of chips and washes it down with a bottle of water. "Oh, and I met the enemy's wife today. Her name's Isabella or something like that, but they just kept calling her Izzie. She's SO nice… like…. Kepner nice."

"Well she probably has to be nice to deal with the Douche-lord that is her husband." I take a couple deep breaths as I unravel the wrapping that my hamburger is inside. If I don't take a couple deep breaths, I WILL escalate and it's never a good thing if I escalate. "I don't even understand how somebody can be that shallow. I never want to be on Dr. Robbins' service again because I DON'T want to deal with him. He's… I don't understand how he can be that nice and gentle with children but SO shitty with me?"

"Are you perhaps misjudging him?" She picks up one of her chicken tenders and dunks it in barbecue sauce. "Because his wife is literally the nicest doctor here. She called Dr. Yang up for a consult and she was so sweet. And she's pretty, too. I just can't imagine someone like Dr. Stevens being married to someone that's as big a jerk as you're describing."

"Oh no… he's an ASSHOLE." I take a sip of my water and twist the cap back on. "Fucking…dickhead."

"Wow…. Angry Jo is…. Angry Jo is scary." She dusts off the rest of her chicken tender and swallows it hard. "But anyway, aside from hating Dr. Karev, did Angry Jo do any thinking about what Stephanie said?"

"…Yeah she did, and she still can't."

"Why?" She looks really disappointed. "Jo, why? Can't you just… I dunno… swallow your pride?"

"It's not a pride thing. I just can't afford to do this. I…" I put down my hamburger and fold my hands. I look around to make sure nobody's around here to hear what I'm about to say. "I'm… I'm REALLY broke, Steph. I used my last five bucks to eat lunch today and now I'm five bucks short on my water bill. I don't know what the hell my next move is. I don't live in Ridgeview because I like it, I live in Ridgeview because I can't afford someplace else. I pay 150 bucks to live in Ridgeview and I still struggle to make ends meet. I can't afford to move in with you. I'll have to help pay things I can't afford… I can't do it, Steph. I can't. Please don't tell anybody…"

"Jo, we're interns… we're ALL broke." She rolls her eyes at me. "We're all broke. We get shitty paychecks for being here and we're all poor little bitches that can't afford stuff. I can't afford my apartment, which is why I'm looking for a roommate. I was gonna put an ad out in the paper but it dawned on me… you need a new place and I need a roommate. Why not just ask somebody I KNOW, aside from asking a perfect stranger? If we both split the bill, then we'll both save money. It costs 200 bucks a month for me to live in my apartment right now. I can't afford to pay that on my own plus buy groceries and pay my cell phone bill. But if… If you move in with me, then we're both paying 100 bucks. That's cheaper for me and for you."

"That doesn't include the water bill, the gas bill, the electricity, the cable… my car insurance, YOUR car insurance… it's not cheaper for me. It's not…" I count off all the bills on my fingers for her.

"Everything's included!" She throws her hands in the air. "My $200 a month includes my water, my gas, my electricity. The only thing I pay for is my cable bill and my dad pays that because we SHARE the cable. I'm on his cable plan. He lives in Olympia and we're on the same cable plan. And if the two of us pitch in, I'm SURE we can buy groceries. I have an extra room that I was going to give to some stranger… why can't I just give it to you? I have a bed, a dresser and a desk in my spare room that's just collecting dust. Please, Jo? Swallow your pride and just say, 'Yes, Steph'." She pokes her lip out and gives me puppy dog eyes. "You don't have to live in Ridgeview anymore…"

"…I'll think about it." Now how do I tell her that I'd rather live alone? I'm not a loner or anything like that. I swear I'm not antisocial. But I'm so used to being alone. I've been by myself since I was sixteen years old. I've lived by myself for twelve years, with the exception of my college roommate. I don't know. Maybe I should just accept the damn offer.

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN**: So I just want to clear a couple things up.

1. I said before in my other story that I've seen a million things done in Jolex stories that aren't done very well, so I want to make this story DIFFERENT from anything that I've ever seen done in Jolex stories before.

2. With that being said, I KNOW that MOST Jolex stories that include Izzie in the story make Izzie EXTREMELY OOC. By making my story different, I intend on making Izzie COMPLETELY IN CHARACTER. I don't know about any of you guys, but Izzie was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Grey's character when the show started, and I feel like making her an "OOC wicked witch" would be doing an injustice to the character that I loved so much. So NO, IZZIE WILL NOT BE OUT OF CHARACTER AND YOU CAN STOP ASSUMING THAT SHE WILL BE. I'm NOT other Jolex writers and I KNOW how annoying it is to have Izzie thrown into a story just to be a freaking bitch. If we can all just be mature and stop the Jo hate in my PMs though, that would be much appreciated.

If you decided to stop reading after the first chapter, oh freaking well. But personally, I find it a bit annoying and unfair to me as a writer if you just assume that I'm going to make Izzie a raging bitch just because other writers do it all the time. Can we not be so judgmental here? Like I said before, I don't care if you have negative comments about my story because that just helps me know what to do and what not to do. But what I can't STAND is when people make comments about things that they haven't even given the story a chance for. I personally don't feel that I've made Izzie OOC and even if I did, it's not like you can pick up on that from ONE MEASLY CHAPTER that she was included in.

And pardon me if Jo's the main focus, but as I've said before, JO WILSON is my FAVORITE Grey's character and this is a JO/ALEX CENTRIC STORY so if you don't like it, go suck an egg and stop leaving Jo hate in my freaking PMs.

But on the other hand, if you've been really nice to me about the story, I love you. And I really appreciate the people that have been looking out for me on here. I really do appreciate that.

I'm not usually this rude but I've been severely annoyed these last couple days to the point where I almost didn't even continue this story. Shout out to the people that have been nice, though. You guys are the reason why I continued it.

-flawlesspeasant.


	4. Apologize

"Just gimme a minute…" I open up the car door and step out of it. It's 9:30 at night and I'm just now getting home. Today was of course another exhausting day at the hospital, but for some reason today was worse than yesterday was. My joints feel like they're going to unhinge at the bases and my entire body is just going to topple apart. I politely excuse my way through a crowd of men that are standing at the entrance of the apartment building smoking what smells like pot. I used to be scared out of my mind to come home at night because they all congregate right in front of the entrance to my building and I had a bad experience with them my first night here. They don't much bother me anymore, though. If I don't say anything to them they won't say anything to me.

I think me and the druggies that I live with are in the same boat when it comes to the fact that we don't want any problems with the law. It's like an unspoken little connection between all of us. The first night I moved into my place, I had to run down to the grocery store for a roll of toilet paper and a bag of chips for my dinner. I somehow managed to get lost in downtown Seattle so when I finally made my way home, it was late and dark like it is right now and the group of druggies were standing outside. Much like I had to do a minute ago, I had to push my way through the crowd to get in my house. They asked me what my name was, I told them it was Jo, they said they never seen me around before, I told them that I had just moved here, the one asked me if I wanted a little bit of what they were smoking on, I told them no. I messed around for a moment too long trying to find my house key and the tallest one of the group thought it was okay to grab my waist.

I gotta be honest when I say that I don't really consider myself a punk. I can hold my own in fights against boys….trust me, I can. But one' s hand was on my waist and the other had me by my arm. I vaguely remember telling them to get the hell off me as someone was trying to either unbutton my jeans or pull down my sweatpants—I don't remember which one. Put it this way, I DO know that somebody was trying to take my pants off me. I never threatened to call the cops but I don't really remember how I got them to leave me alone. I know that I managed to get out of that with just an unwanted kiss and a feel-up underneath my shirt, though. I can't really remember what stopped the two that were all over me from taking my pants off. I sort of remember hitting one's head off the wall…but that's all. I don't know.

Anyway, ever since then, I try to avoid coming home late at night like this. I yank open the door to my apartment building and lightly jog up the steps to the second floor, instinctively glancing over at the corner that's next to my front door. It's a habit for me to do that anymore. She's been gone since last month and I still find myself checking to see if she's okay. I wonder if I'll ever see her again. I'm 28 years old and I can remember a handful of people throughout my lifetime that I would like to see again. Brynn is one of those people I'd like to see again.

When I first moved here, Brynn was one of the first people I met. She would always stand in the corner beside my door because she lived right across the hall and nine times out of ten; she was locked out of her house because her mom wasn't home. I never did know her age but if I had to guess, I'd say she was more than three but no more than four. I think she was three. She still had a pacifier and she wore a diaper, but she was old enough to call me "Doh" and tell me her name was "Bin." Anyway, I came out of my house to put gas in my car the morning after my move and she was there. She stood knee-high and she looked like a porcelain baby doll. She had a little bit of curly dark brown hair and cream-colored skin with rosy cheeks. Brynn was often the reason I went to bed hungry at nights but I never minded because what I had was never much, but I felt like she should have it.

I don't know when, but sometime I gathered enough balls inside myself to call the cops and leave an anonymous tip that there was a baby outside of my apartment building that's being mistreated. I watched with delight out of my window the day that social services came and took Brynn away. I sometimes scare the shit out of myself when I think about the fact that she could've gone into foster care, but it's easy these days to talk myself into the fact that foster homes are NOT like they used to be. Then again, foster care had to be better than starving outside of the house that your mother never let you inside. Plus, Brynn was an adorable little baby so it'd be easy for her to get adopted. The image of her waving at me through my window saying, "Buh-bye Doh" is still burned in the back of my head, but whatever. Like I said, I've only been living here for three months but I have stories to tell for weeks about this three month binge.

I grab a grocery store bag from underneath my kitchen sink and go into my bedroom with it. I go over to my garbage bag of clean clothes and stuff a pair of underwear inside the grocery bag, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I go inside my bathroom and shove my toothbrush and my deodorant in the bag. When I'm sure I have everything I need, I tie a knot inside the bag and go back to my bedroom.

After a long day of work and being insulted and mocked for going to Harvard, I just want to sleep in my own room. But Stephanie invited me to have a couple drinks and sleep over at her apartment "to see how I like it" before I accept the offer to move in. Well, I've found a way to tell her that I'd rather live alone and I feel like I've already rejected her enough for one day, so I just said that I would drink and sleep over at her house tonight. Because interns work every second day at Seattle Grace-Mercy West, we're off tomorrow. I'm glad I have an off day because I have a bunch of shit to do. Like call a tow-truck to get my car out of the hospital parking lot and try to go make enough money to pay them to tow it.

I grab my cell phone charger and make a beeline for my front door. I lock it behind me for the night and walk back down the steps to Steph's car. I don't know where they went, but the group of druggies is gone when I come back out. I open up the door and get back inside Steph's car. "You're so lucky I actually like you. I was so tempted to just get into my bed and go to sleep. I'm exhausted."

"So would now be a bad time to tell you that I invited Leah, Heather and Shane over at 11? Would now be the worst time to tell you that?" She pulls out of my apartment complex parking lot and turns to go to her house. "I can always cancel, but we can only celebrate making it through two days of internship once in a lifetime."

"Really, Steph?" I throw my head back and grit my teeth. "I thought you said it was just gonna be us. I already told you how bad I suck at making friends…"

"You'll be fine Jo. We're just gonna sit in my living room, drink a little bit and listen to music. It'll be fun." She glances over at me and I utter a low, monotone groan. "…You really are uppity. You don't know how to let loose. It's that Ivy League education…"

"I'm NOT uppity and I'm not a snob. And I DO know how to let loose… it's not like I went to nun school, it was just the Ivy League." I roll my eyes and look out the window. "I'm just not very good at making friends. I'm a friendly person but… ehh." I look over at her. "You really think I'm a snob?"

"…You do kind of act prissy sometimes. Like you're too good to do things with the other interns. Sometimes it seems like you think that because you went to Ivy League schools that you're better than all of us. Only sometimes, though."

"….But I don't?" I'm starting to get irritated. I fold my arms across my chest and look straight. People thinking that I think that I'm prissy, stuck up and bitchy really bothers me because I'm TOTALLY NOT. How could I be?! I came from NOTHING…how can I act like a snob? I've never held anything bigger than a twenty dollar bill in my hand. How am I a priss?! "Because I totally wipe my ASS with hundred dollar bills. Because I have a pair of fucking shoes to match my every mood…. Right? I'm the prissiest bitch on the face of the earth."

"Chill, Jo… I never said any of that." Steph's voice is a little bit alarmed. "You asked and I answered. You asked me if I thought you were a snob and the answer is no…I don't think so. But sometimes you do act like you're the reborn Jesus Christ… wearing makeup to work and stuff like you can't stand being ugly? That bothers the others. It doesn't bother me much but the others don't really like it." My vision starts to blur up with unshed tears. I put my bottom lip between my top teeth and start breathing slowly. _See, this is why I'm no good at making friends. They all decide that they don't like me before they even get to know me. I really don't try to act snobby I just don't want it to be obvious that I'm a homeless dumpster diver. I guess in my efforts, sometimes it comes off as snooty. But I swear I'm not… _

"Well…" I rub my hand across my nose and sniff. "I don't really like for people to know I don't have anything… it keeps them from pitying my sorry ass. So sometimes, I just…. I try to make it so that people don't know that I'm worthless and I guess it comes off as a bitchy, prissy attitude. But I swear I'm not like that. I… I know the value of a dollar. I know what it's like to struggle to get the things you want, I swear. I'm not like that…"

"You don't have to convince me. I know you're not, but I'm just saying that when you act like that… you kind of have to brace yourself for people thinking you're a snob. It's especially easy for the people that have never talked to you to think that because when you look like that… it's just a given."

"…Look like what?"

"Like you just stepped out of the Miss America pageant." She pulls into the driveway of a small duplex. "Just listen to me for a second." She shuts off her car and turns to me. I tuck my hair behind my ear and listen. "If you've never talked to someone before, but they walked into a SURGICAL internship with a made up face, wouldn't you think they were a bit presumptuous? What if that same person looked like a model and then everyone found out that this person went to Harvard Medical while the rest of us just went to state colleges? What would you think?"

"…I would think that she was a bitch." I admit. I don't think I'm the hottest thing to walk the planet, but I do know that I'm not ugly. I'm not pretty or sexy or hot, but I'm not hideous. And I did go to really good schools. And sometimes my attitude makes me want to slap the crap out of myself… so I can only imagine how others must perceive me. I'm not mad at Steph, because like she said… I DID ask her if she thought I was snobby. I guess I just have to start getting to know people better so that people can get to know me and know that I'm NOT like that.

"You're right. It's not fair that people prejudge you before they even get to talk to you, but that's life." She opens up her car door but doesn't get out yet. "…You know Stacy? I don't know her last name because she's just that irrelevant, but you know… Stacy. She's short and fat with long red hair and a unibrow." She explains her to me and I think I know who she's talking about. She was on Dr. Robbins' service with me today, I believe. "She assumed that I was a nurse today." My jaw drops at that statement. "Yep. She asked me for a calculator and I told her that I didn't have one and she asked me what kind of nurse I was. And then when I told her that I was an intern just like her, she told me she's never seen a black surgeon before."

My jaw drops even further at that. "…But… But Dr. Bailey and Dr. Webber…was she serious?!" I'm angry FOR Steph. You know, that's another thing that irritates me. Racist people, I mean. I get that some people weren't raised like me and to be honest, I'm glad that most people weren't raised like me. But at the same time, I think my upbringing has made me into a better person. Racist people are one of my pet peeves. "And what did you say? Did you do anything? I would've slapped the hell out of her if I were you!"

"It didn't bother me though, Jo." She says. I examine her face to see if I can find any faults in it to suggest that she's lying and she did actually care, but she seems genuine. "I'm a way better person than she'll ever be and I don't care if anybody thinks I shouldn't be in the program because of my skin color or because of my attitude or anything like that. I just didn't care and I didn't let her words bother me. And you shouldn't let people's judgments bother you either. You just gotta prove them wrong like you proved me wrong. I thought you were a little bit snooty, but as soon as I started talking to you, you proved me wrong." She finally gets out of the car and I get out as well. "I'm sorry, though. I didn't mean to upset you…."

"It's okay, I'm just not used to this." I shut the car door behind me and loop my wrist through the handles of the grocery bag I put my clothes inside. "I've never really had to try and make sure people like me. I used to just roll with the fact that some people don't like me but now it matters if people like me or not. I have a job where it matters if I'm liked and I'm not used to it."

"Well, like I said…. You're not a hard person to get along with."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"So how was your day today? Teach any interns?" She doesn't even stop looking at the TV screen when she asks me that.

"I think I made one hate me." I keep watching the TV as well. "I heard her screaming about me to her friend at the lunch table today. It was hilarious."

"Alex... you really gotta stop being mean. Everybody hates you because you're an ass to everybody but me." She sighs. "Which one was it?"

"Uh...Wilson. Jo Wilson."

"Aww, she's the cute one." She love-taps me on my arm. "Mere was showing me the interns today at lunch and I'm pretty sure that Wilson is the cute one. Does she have like freakishly pretty hair and she's like... kinda tall?" I nod my head. "Oh, Alex! She's adorable! Why were you mean to her?!"

"Would it make you feel better if I apologized to the girl?"

"Yes, it would."

"Fine, I'll apologize. But only because you asked me to."

"How much do you love me?" Her slender fingers wrap themselves around the remote control as she uses her thumb to press the pause button to the DVD player. My lips pull up into a grin and she turns her head to look at me. "On a scale of one to ten, one being the least and ten being the highest." She cracks a smile herself, flashing those beaming, pearly white teeth at me. "Because I was just thinking about something for the wedding but…"

"I love you like a fat kid loves cake, okay? I'm not gonna put a number on it." I run my fingers along the soft skin on her hip and kiss her temple. I never really used to be a big fan of the kisses and the cuddles but these days, I don't really want to miss a minute of letting her know how much she means to me. Things happen way too quickly to waste a single moment. That's why we're having a big wedding. We're not having one just because she wants one; that's not the only reason. We're having one despite the fact that I absolutely loathe the idea of having a big wedding because this could possibly be the only wedding she'll ever have. It's unfair to her to stunt the things that she wants just because I don't want them. "What was your idea for the wedding?"

"You know how my dress is gonna be pink, right?" She muses. I nod. "I was thinking we could get your tux custom made. The outside can be pink with a silver vest… and a pink tie. Or is that a big no for you? No pink tux?" A pink tux isn't really that bad. I feel like I owe it to her to at least wear what she wants me to wear. The original plan for us was to have a small wedding for friends and family, and even when that was the plan, I was going to let her put me in some goofy colored tuxedo. It's the only way I can repay her. Question. How do you repay someone that's given you everything?

I mean that. Iz has given me everything. She's given me a reason to better myself, a reason to try and make something out of my life and a reason to want to be a better person. I gotta be honest. I didn't have the slightest idea of what I wanted my life to be before I met her. I never wanted to get married or have kids or any of that stuff. I didn't even have the desire to buy my own house. But now, I'm about to get married to the love of my life, I own a house that I bought off one of my best friends and I can see myself being a good dad someday…and that's all because of her. It's crazy how one person can do that to you.

"I don't care about a pink tux." I run my fingers through the silky pieces of her thin blonde hair. It's shoulder-length now and it's just crazy to think that this time two months ago, she didn't have enough hair to squeeze into a ponytail. It's been growing back nicely since she stopped her treatments. It's been in remission since February and she hasn't had to go through chemo since March. Five months cancer free and four months chemo free is reason enough to give her the wedding she deserves. "We should do the cake tasting thing soon so I can get the cake paid for sooner rather than later."

"What kind of cake do you want? I know banana crème is your favorite but you really think that'd make a decent wedding cake?" She lifts her head up and rests her face in the crook of my neck like she always does when she's sleepy. We were watching The Fast & The Furious while we were unwinding from the long day at work that we both had, but if she's sleepy then we can go to bed. "I just feel like we should get our money's worth. If we get a banana crème cake for our wedding cake and not everybody eats it, then we have leftover cake for days."

"Red velvet then?" I suggest. "You can't really go wrong with red velvet and cream cheese." I curl my fingers around her hips and pull her onto my lap. "Forget the wedding for a couple minutes." I kiss her on her cheek, right beside her lips. "When are you gonna give me babies?" To ensure that she's secure on my lap, I fold my arms around her waist and hold her tight. "Lots and lots of babies… that's what I'm looking forward to."

She puts her hands on the back of my head and smiles at me again. "How many?"

"As many as we can get." I loosen my arms so I can rub her back. "At least two, though. I wouldn't want the only child to get lonely, so we gotta have at least two. And they can't be any more than three years apart… and we gotta have our boy first."

"Well you've got this all planned out for me, don't you?" She leans her head down and kisses me again. "Someone's got baby fever…"

"I wouldn't call it that." I just stare up at her in complete awe of her beauty. What Mere said earlier is right. Iz and I are soulmates. I really feel like she's the person I'm meant to be with for the rest of my life, but I can't quite figure out how I got so lucky to get her. I don't think I deserve her but I'm never gonna let her go. She's mine and I don't intend on letting her go. But I don't think I'd ever say that aloud. "I just wanna know when…"

"Preferably after we get married." She puts her hand to my forehead and gently pushes my head back. "But I guess we could try to make a baby sometime soon." She winks at me. "Like tonight?"

"There's no harm in trying." I grab the remote and turn the TV off. She pulls me down on top of her and starts to kiss me. There's definitely no harm in trying for a baby….

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"When'd you say that the other ones were coming?" With a can of Dr. Pepper in my hand, I sit down in the corner of the sofa in Steph's living room and cross my legs. Steph's sitting at the opposite end of the couch stuffing popcorn in her mouth and scrolling through her cell phone. I admit that this is a really nice place she has here. It's nice and spacious and everything is on one floor. The entire place is carpeted unlike my place and there are no signs of mold growing anywhere. It's really neat and tidy and it looks like an apartment you could rent over in NYC. It's so clean that I would feel safe if I ate off of the floor. Completely nixing the fact that I just asked her when the other interns are coming over, I start a new conversation. "Is all this furniture in here yours?"

She swallows a mouthful of popcorn and nods. "My mom got new furniture last year and she kept this stuff in storage for me to have when I got my own place. So everything in this place is mine except for the fridge, the stove and the washer and dryer. Those came with the apartment." She points to the 60-inch flat-screen TV that's mounted onto the wall in front of where we're sitting. "This was a hand-me-down from my dad. The kitchen table is another hand-me-down…"

"Oh." I crack open my can of Dr. Pepper and take a quick sip of it. "This stuff isn't bad for your first furniture. It's nice and clean and stuff." I look around to keep marveling at the fanciness of the apartment. "And the stuff in your guest room… is that all hand-me-down stuff too?"

"Yep." She puts her feet up on the coffee table and looks over at me. "But if you have your own mattress and dresser and stuff, I can just go stick that crap back in storage. You don't have to use that stuff." She pops another three or four pieces of popcorn in her mouth and starts to chew. "What time do you want to move in tomorrow? I was thinking you'd probably want to do it tomorrow since we're off for the next two days. And the two of us could go food shopping tomorrow because my dad wants me to go to Olympia so he can give me his food card."

"…Food card?" I wrinkle my eyebrow in confusion. I've never heard of a food card before. I need to get me one of those.

"You know… the food card. I think they're really called EBT cards. The food stamp things? You know how you get a card for that? Don't tell me you've never heard of food stamps before…"

"Oh!" I've heard of food stamps before. I've never heard the card be called a "food card" before though. I've just heard them called "food stamps." "Yeah, I've heard of food stamps." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "So your dad just gives you his food stamps? He'd do that for you?"

"Well yeah." She takes her feet off the coffee table and tucks her legs underneath of her body. "He's my dad… and he worries about me. He gets like 300 bucks in food stamps every month because he's on disability. He never really uses them because my step-mom is like SUPER good at budgeting so he lets me use them to get food every now and again. He got them today and he told me to come down to Olympia to get it so I can do some shopping. And he usually gives me like 50 bucks to buy the things that food stamps won't buy. Like toilet paper and shampoo and conditioner and soap and stuff."

"That's nice of him to do." I look down at the couch cushion between my legs and sigh. I don't mean to sound antisocial but I'm really enjoying the time with just Stephanie. She let me get in the shower first and after she got out after me, we just started talking. I like it this way. "It's safe to say you never go hungry then, I guess."

"My parents don't let me go hungry. They understand that I'm still just an intern and I need a little bit of help here and there." She adjusts her glasses on her face and continues to just look at me. "That's the good thing about parents, you know? They never just abandon you…even when you're 28 and long out of their house, they still feel the need to help you get on your feet."

"…Yeah, I guess you're right." Is that really what parents are supposed to do? I wouldn't really know.

"Your parents must've been over the moon when you got into Princeton and Harvard, eh?" She cracks open her own can of soda and holds it to her mouth. "Harvard's all expensive and so is Princeton. Did they have to sell a kidney to keep you in school?"

"…Not really." Why do I feel like I'm lying to her? I'm not lying or anything like that, but I feel like I am. I feel like I'm a big liar that's just leading her to believe that I actually have parents. "…I don't have parents, Steph." I put my tongue in my cheek, embarrassed. She's looking at me like I'm a puppy that just barked for the first time in my life. I look away from her. "…I've been on my own since I was sixteen. I don't know who my mom is and I don't know who my dad is. I used to um…" I blink back tears and press my lips together. "I used to live in my car. I've been an orphan for as long as I can remember."

"…You really don't know your folks?" Her face looks like she might cry. "Jo I didn't… I didn't know… I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I turned out fine, didn't I?" I move my hair to the other side of my shoulder so it's out of my way. "My mom left me outside of a fire station when I was two weeks old and after that, I spent all my life in foster homes… til I was sixteen, that's when I moved into my car."

"Foster homes? Is that plural?" She looks really confused and equally upset. "I thought that you get put into one foster home until you turn eighteen. They just let you live in your car like that?"

"There are ways around it… and you only stay in foster homes if the people like you." I sigh. "…But I got into Princeton and Harvard because I worked really hard for it. That's why it kind of bothers me when people think that I got everything handed to me and think that I'm prissy. Because I'm really not. I know what it means to struggle. And I know what it's like to go to bed hungry. And I don't feel sorry for myself, either. I'm NOT poor Jo. I'm not that at all, because shit happens, you know? Not everybody is blessed with good parents and people that give a shit about whether they live or die...and that doesn't matter. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere if I felt bad for myself."

"…So you weren't kidding? You really can't afford much…" She looks over and puts her Dr. Pepper down on the coffee table. "…I know you don't really know me, but that doesn't matter." She scoots over on her butt so that she's next to me. "You do have me though. I can be your family… if you want." She gives me a real tight hug.

My lips tug themselves up into a sincere smile. "Thanks Steph, but you don't need to feel sorry for me." I hug her back to be polite. "Just don't tell anybody, okay? I don't want people to feel all bad for me and stuff at the hospital. I hate that."

"I would never tell anybody, Jo. Ever. I'm not like that." Before she pulls out of our hug, she combs her fingers through my hair. "I guess the good thing is that as long as you live with me, you'll never really be hungry anymore." I guess living with Steph wouldn't be so bad… Whatever, I accept the offer.

I chuckle. "I was never really that hungry. I mean…" I look up at the ceiling then back at her. "Yeah when I lived in my car I didn't have a choice but to be hungry but recently, I've gone hungry by choice." She looks at me like I'm nuts so I clear my throat to explain to her about Brynn. "This little girl that lived in my apartment building was so cute but she was always so hungry because her mom always locked her out the house so I used to make my little packets of Ramen Noodles and give the bulk of them to her. I couldn't watch a little kid starve to death while I'm a doctor. Her name was Brynn."

"You're literally a saint, Jo. Saint Jo… I'm gonna start calling you that."

"If it makes you happy." I shrug my shoulders.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Still Jo's Point of View (lol).<strong>

"Have any of you guys been on Dr. Avery's service yet?" Steph asks as she tops off Leah's cup with more coconut flavored vodka. I think I'm gonna be done after this next cup full because I'm really starting to feel this. I'm not drunk just yet but I'm almost there and I don't want to get drunk with people I don't know. When I'm drunk, I get all weird and extremely talkative and I just want to have sex and pass out when I'm drunk. It's a weird thing. So I usually prefer to get drunk with either close girlfriends or just by myself…that way I won't do anything I regret.

"He's married, Stephanie." Shane retorts, which makes me laugh. He's actually not as bad as he seemed at first. He's not as serious as he appeared to be in the locker room…he's actually funny. He's sitting next to me and he's halfway through his third cup of booze. He's made me laugh more times than I can count and he's only been here for a half hour so far. "What is it with you girls and married men?!"

"You thought Yang was hot until you found out that she was married, so chill." Leah downs her refill of vodka and rolls her eyes. I could get along with Leah as well. She's really sassy and a lot of the things that come out of her mouth are sarcastic and really witty. Not to mention that she's really pretty. "Work is no fun without eye-candy. Just because they're married doesn't mean we can't think they're hot."

"Thank you Leah." Steph takes a sip of her own alcohol and looks directly at me. Steph's been going out of her way to include me in on the conversations tonight and I don't really think she needs to. I'm fine laughing occasionally at jokes and drinking. I'm okay with it. But again, she drags me into the conversation. "Jo's swooning over this guy from OB."

"I am not!" I put my cup down and roll my eyes. My lips are up in a permanent smile and I'm actually really enjoying myself with them tonight. Maybe Steph's right. Maybe I'm really not a hard person to get along with. "I just think he's hot…and he is. He's sexy that's all. I'm not swooning."

Heather's eyes bug out of her head. Heather is a species all her own. She doesn't fit the mold of Leah or Steph…Heather is Heather. She's goofy and funny and really, really, REALLY weird. "Is he bald? With real big muscles? And he's a light-skin isn't he?" She pours herself some more liquor and starts talking to me. "I know exactly who you're talking about. You're talkin' about Chest Peckwell."

_Chest Peckwell? _"…I don't even know his name, but I guess. All I know is that he's hot, he works in OB, he wears pink scrubs and he could GET IT." I shrug and pick my cup of liquor back up. Glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks the guy from OB is hot.

"….By 'get it' you mean?" Shane asks. The look on his face tells that he is genuinely confused.

"I'd fuck him…. no shame. I don't even care. I'd sleep with him." I shrug my shoulders and admit it. See, this is why I hate getting drunk around people that I hardly even know. Because now Shane probably thinks I'm easy and I'm not I just think that Chest Peckwell is hot and the liquor makes me hormonal and sex-crazed. It's not a good combo.

"Why don't you just ask the guy out? It's hot when girls make the first move and you'll never know if he's single unless you ask." Shane proposes.

"I can't just go up to him and be like… hey, you're hot, date me." I shake my head. "Maybe I'll ask him out…when the cows come home."

"She also thinks Dr. Karev is hot too. The girl needs help." Steph winks at me.

"BUT HE TOTALLY IS! OH MY GOD." Leah starts gushing. _Glad I'm not alone in that either. _"And he's into blondes! His wife is skinny and blonde… I'M skinny and blonde…HELLO! We're meant to be."

"He's the biggest asshole I've ever met in my life though. He's the worst human being." I drink the last gulp of my drink and lean back against the couch. "He's a big fat jerk that needs to go get hit by the milk truck." Heather and Shane both bust out into laughter. "I'm so serious! I've never met somebody so ignorant, self-absorbed and DOUCHEY in my life. I hope nobody ever has the unfortunate displeasure of ever meeting such a despicable human being…ever."

"Damn, Jo." Leah shakes her head at me. "And here I thought you were goody-goody two shoes that didn't say much of anything." She laughs. "Dr. Karev brings it out of you."

"No, he's just the biggest butt-muncher I've ever met." I sigh. "But he's hot… how does that work? How is someone that sexy but so fucked up?"

"I hear that Dr. Avery's a real gentleman." Steph adds in.

"Nobody gives a shit about Avery but you." Heather snaps playfully at her.

"Oh wait guys…" I start. "You guys know the one they call 'McDreamy'? He could get it too." I know I said I was done after this cup, but I lean forward and fill it back up anyway. "We work in a hospital full of sexy people…. How does this work?" I swallow a small gulp of liquor.

"…I think you just need laid." Steph shakes her head at me like she's ashamed. "You swoon over Chest Peckwell, Karev AND Shepherd? You need something…. when's your birthday? I'm gonna buy you a vibrator."

I roll my eyes at her and laugh. "No thanks. I don't masturbate. I'd rather have the real thing." I pull my hair back and look over at Shane. "So you really think I should ask him out? Chest Peckwell, I mean. Should I ask him? Are you sure that's not desperate on my behalf?"

"Just start talking to him… then just ask him out for a drink. You can't go wrong there." He responds.

"…I'm gonna need a couple beers in my system before I get enough balls to ask him out. But maybe I'll do it… on Friday."


	5. Guilty

"Whose service are you on today?" Steph tosses me her tube of deodorant. She's all giddy and happy because she's still on Dr. Yang's service. I'm wondering exactly how she's managing to stay on her service for three days straight. She must have her lips super-glued to Yang's butt or something because I can't get on an interesting case to save my life. And plus, Steph's actually getting the opportunities to see what the inside of an OR looks like. If I keep messing around with residents and attendings that hate me, I'll NEVER see the inside of an OR.

"Robbins threw me on her service again which means I'll have to deal with Karev." I roll deodorant underneath my armpits and hand it back to Steph. I pull my scrub top over my head and adjust it. "Just give me pointers on how to properly kiss ass. At this point, I'll kiss anyone's ass to get off Pediatrics. I hate Peds. I hate the Peds attending, I hate the Peds resident, I hate the Peds floor. I hate Peds."

"Wow… your soul really is black. You hate innocent, dying children." Leah takes a jab at me while she ties her shoe.

"I don't hate children. The kids are actually all really cute." I yank my hair up into a messy bun. "I just wish I could get on a service where people actually treat me fairly."

"I'm actually on Shepherd's service today. I'd trade with you because at least Peds is interesting. Neuro is so boring I might fall asleep." Leah puts her own hair up in a ponytail and shuts her locker door. "If you want to switch we can. Innocent dying children has to be better than watching people seize and drool all day."

"Why would she switch with you? So she can screw up simple procedures because she's too busy drooling over McDreamy?" Steph nudges me on my shoulder.

"Shut up." I mumble. "I totally would switch with you though. But apparently Dr. Robbins asked for me specifically… can't imagine why."

"Oooh she asked for you SPECIFICALLY." Leah winks her eye at me and laughs. "You know she's a lez right? Maybe she likes your butt… Maybe she wants eye candy to look at while she works."

I put my finger up to stop her. "Okay first of all, she's married to the ortho goddess. Second of all, I'm not gay."

"You don't have to be gay to be fun to look at." Steph says under her breath. "You're eye candy."

"You are very fun to look at, Jo." Heather pops into the conversation, agreeing with Steph. I flip my hair all conceited and animated like you see on those movies where girls think they're the shit. Not to be all self-absorbed, but I know I'm pretty. Still and yet, I don't think that's the reason Robbins requested me. I don't know exactly why she requested me but I don't think it has anything to do with me being pretty. Heather fixes her wispy, shoulder-length hair and sits down on the benches. "I'm on Dr. Bailey's service today with Dr. Grey…anybody wanna trade?"

"I'm NOT going near Medusa…you got that." Leah shuts her down quickly. "I'd rather fall asleep on Neuro all day then spend the day with Medusa and The Nazi. That's equivalent to the death sentence."

"She hasn't really been much of a Nazi lately, though." I sit down next to Heather and look around the corner from the lockers at Shane. I know that he's listening to us but out of respect, he changes on the other side of the lockers so he doesn't look at us while we're half naked. "Ever since that anesthesiologist's been piping her down… she's been nice." I lean forward and rest my hands on my knees. "Me and Steph decided to call her BCB."

"…BCB?" Heather asks.

"Booty Call Bailey." Steph takes the liberty of explaining to her. We came up with that nickname last night, actually. I've only been living with Steph for two days and I'm already glad that I did it. It's not that I like the fact that there's so much food in the apartment that I've eaten proper breakfasts, lunches and dinners. It's not that I don't have to wear shoes in the shower because there's no mold in there. It's not even that my bed is so comfortable that I've been sleeping dreamlessly these last two nights. No, it's not any of those reasons.

I actually enjoy Steph's company. We stay up late at night just talking about work and getting to know each other. We spent our first off day loading the house up with groceries, towing my car back to my new place and fixing up my new room. We spent our entire off day yesterday watching TV and eating ice cream out of the container. Needless to say that I'm just really glad that I decided to move in with her. I honestly don't regret a single moment.

"Yeah, well I'm doing outpatient surgery with Kepner today…" Shane finally joins in our conversation. "I'm gonna be cutting ALL. DAY. LONG."

"Kepner's a dud." Leah says.

"Yeah, nobody cares, Shane." I playfully punch him in his kneecap and laugh. "So… Leah's with McDreamy, Heather's with BCB and Medusa… Steph's with Lord Yang and Me? I'm stuck with…" I tune my nose up just thinking about my services for the day. "McPreppy and McDouchebag."

Leah really gets a kick outta that. "McPreppy and McDouchebag….shut up Jo." She laughs pretty hard. "But seriously guys…. We should probably go. They're most likely waiting for us." She glances up at the clock on the wall. "We're gonna be late for rounds."

"I'm just gonna kill myself." I shrug and stand up. And I really might just off myself today. I'm working with Dr. Karev all day… I might as well be dead already.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Wilson, you're with me today… let's go." As soon as she shows her face on the Peds floor, I call her out. If she doesn't act like an idiotic entitled little brat today, I might apologize to her for Monday. I can tell by the look on her face that she'd rather rake up pig shit than be with me and that's fine. I don't care if she hates me. I'm here to teach her not befriend her. With stiff legs, she stalks over to me and puts a stack of folders on the nurses' station counter. "What are those?"

"Dr. Robbins asked me to get labs for the jaundice baby." She opens up the folders and starts filing through them. "She said to present them to you…."

"What to the labs say?"

"…That his bilirubin is still elevated."

"No crap. I want numbers." I take a quick sip of my coffee and wait for her to rattle off numbers. "And what to elevated bilirubin counts tell us?"

"…That the UV isn't strong enough so we should up him to a full UV incubator and monitor his progress slowly. If his levels don't change then we should consider looking into surgery." She's not even looking at me at this point. She's looking down at my shoes. "Even though his bilirubin's been up for a week now we should still monitor it…"

"If the bilirubin hasn't gone down yet, what makes you think that it ever will without surgery?"

"I don't know…" She puts the labs back down on the counter and finally looks up at me, desperation in her eyes. "…Can I go down to the pit? If I'm not needed here, I'd much rather spend time in the pit with Dr. Webber..."

"Let's go." I pick up the labs and my coffee and walk through the doors of the NICU. She lazily follows me back to the west wing. I've never been very good with apologies. Apologizing isn't something that I've had a lot of experience with. The last time I can recall apologizing, I was fifteen and trying to get out of spending time in juvi. It didn't work, for the record. I still spent three months in the hole and apologizing didn't do much but make me feel like a dope. "Since the baby doesn't seem to be responding to the light therapy, we're going to have to start exhausting other options." I unlatch the locks on the incubator and open it up. "Have you placed an IV before?"

"In a baby? No." She stands right beside me and looks on into the incubator. "Is it any different from placing an IV in an adult?"

"The concept is the same but actually doing it is different." I grab two pairs of gloves from the glove dispenser on the wall and hand her a pair. "What's gonna happen is this; we're gonna place the IV and then we're gonna hook some immunoglobulin into it…see if that helps the little guy out." I grab an alcohol pad so I can sterilize the area I'll insert the IV into. "For babies, their veins are—"

"…Wait, so you think it could be a blood disorder that's making him so sick?" She looks at me with wonder written all over her face. Her eyes are brown…but not the kind of brown that I see all the time. They're a really, really bright brown. They might be hazel but I don't want to spend too long looking at them. _She's kind of… _"Sorry to interrupt you… but do you really think it's a blood disorder? Because isn't immunoglobulin a treatment for blood disorders?"

"It's clearly not a liver malfunction because he's not responding to light therapy. So we've gotta start looking at other causes, such as blood disorders." I hand her the little alcohol pad. "Good catch." I wait for her little nervous hands to take the sterilization pad. "If I tell you the most viable vein is in his foot, would you be able to insert the IV?" _It's not that hard to be nice to her. I guess I don't really want her to hate me. _I grab the baby's foot and hold it in my hand so it's nice and still for her. "It's just like an adult…just tinier." My eyes wander over to her again. Her fingers are so slender and her fingernails are neat and trimmed. And she smells good, but I'm pretty sure it's her hair that I'm smelling. _She's really… _

"I think I can do it." She tears open the sterilization pad and softly wipes the baby's foot. "That right there… that's the vein I use, isn't it?" I nod my head to avoid talking too much. I want to see what she knows. She can't learn from me coaching her every step of the way of doing an IV. "Okay…." After she sterilizes the area, she picks up the needle. Her hands are shaking pretty badly. "Am I…. am I going in at the right angle?"

"You tell me." I take the needle off her and put it back down on the soft blanket that's cushioning the little guy. "You're fine, Wilson. When you start to second guess yourself is when you start making mistakes. Take a deep breath and keep your hands from shaking." I put the needle back in her hands and hold the baby's foot still again. "Easy now…"

She steadies her hands and pushes the needle inside the baby's foot. Gently, she twists the needle and pushes it upwards so she's completely inside the vein. The baby's being a little trooper about it as well. "…Can you hand me the surgical tape so I can secure it?" I can tell by the look on her face that she's proud of herself. I tear off a tiny strip of tape and hand it to her. She straps the tape onto the base of the IV so it doesn't fall out and as soon as she does that, the baby starts to cry for the first time. "…Oh no… oh, I'm sorry buddy…" Her voice is really soft and friendly. _She's really good at this. _

"Good job with that. That wasn't half bad." I clean up the area around where we just worked and get ready to hook the fluid into his IV. "You can't take a moment to steady yourself like that, though. It's okay to do it on a baby but if you do that in front of an adult patient, they'll think you have no idea what you're doing and it'll freak them out. Don't second guess yourself, Wilson. You did that perfectly."

"Thank you Dr. Karev…. For letting me do that." She takes off her gloves and tosses them into the wastebasket. "Um… look, I think we might've got off on the wrong foot on Monday… I didn't mean to come off as insubordinate or rude or anything like that."

"Nah, don't sweat it." I take my own gloves off and throw them away as well. "I'm sorry for Monday as well." She takes a step back and puts her hands in the pockets of her scrub pants and looks around. I think I might've been wrong about her. I don't really think she got through med school the same way Iz did. She just doesn't really come across as the type that'll take her clothes off. But if I didn't know any better, I'd still say that she doesn't belong here. She looks like she belongs in the pages of a magazine. Her face bears resemblance to that of child. Her skin is so smooth and naturally tanned white, only one main impurity marking it which is that of a beauty mark that resides next to her mouth. Her eclectic bright brown eyes hold innocence deep in them and her lips are full, plump and really soft pink. Her hair fans out at her temples and forehead then neatly pulls back into a bouncy, curly ponytail. _Stop looking at her. _But she's so…

"Is there anything else we should do?" She breaks me out of my thoughts that were immersed in her. I've just never quite seen somebody quite like her. I've never seen somebody with eyes so strangely brown as hers are. "Just monitor him and see if his bilirubin goes down? If it goes down, should we discharge him? What are we supposed to tell his parents when they come back?"

"We tell them that their baby boy is going to be just fine." She sure does worry a lot about stuff though. "These people have been dealing with a sick baby for weeks now. They understand that things aren't just gonna happen overnight. They've been working towards getting their baby home… it's not unusual to work towards getting the things you want, Princess." Her face changes from completely enchanted to disgruntled. She looks confused…and I guess she has a right to be. _No more being nice to her. No more of that at all. _

"…I know?" She says that with a questioning tone. "I respect that."

"If you respect it so much then you wouldn't sound so surprised that the world isn't all rainbows and butterflies." I stuff the chart and the labs under my arm and start walking towards the exit of the NICU. "Look Wilson, you have a real knack for Peds… really, you do. But you gotta understand that this is a real place and these are real people dealing with real sick babies. I know it's not what you're used to, but it's reality. If you're gonna make it here, you have to know that."

"...Whoa, wait…" She starts walking really fast to keep up with me. "But I know all of this. Do you give everyone this speech?" She seems really confused. "Dr. Karev, I know the world sucks…believe me, I know. I'm nothing like that… I wouldn't have gone into medicine if I didn't already know that shit—crap….CRAP happens." Once we get out of the NICU, she leans against the nurse's station. "Just… do you have anything else for me to do today?"

"Yeah, kid in room 309's parents have been waiting for him to pass a marble for three days. Go check his stool sample." I scroll through the electric chart to give her the chart for the kid. "Might wanna take that honker on your wrist off before you start digging around."

"…My watch?" She glances down at the shiny silver and pink watch that's on her left wrist. That thing has to be worth MONEY.

"Yep. Daddy would be mighty disappointed if you got a kid's crap all over it, wouldn't he Princess?"

"…Can you just stop calling me that?" She puts her hand in her pocket to hide the watch from me. She sounds really cool about it…like I'm not making her all that mad aside from the fact that she just wants me to stop calling her Princess.

"Maybe later." I tilt my head so I can still catch a little glimpse of the watch. "How much that thing cost?"

"…I don't know." She shrugs her shoulders and I can't help but stare at her lips. Her jaw shifts from left to right out of nervousness and her very full bottom lip catches underneath her top teeth. "…It was a gift." Her lips look…incredibly soft. Her top lip is fuller and thicker than her bottom one and the initial curvature of them flare out into a heart shape. I wonder if they're as soft as they look… _Stop. _

Out of frustration—not anger, my hands bawl up into fists. "…Go check on the jaundice baby again. Get new labs and have someone page me when you get the results."

"But didn't we just hang the immunoglobulin? Shouldn't we give it more time to work?"

"Then go monitor his stats." I close up the chart and walk away. I can't stand to be in her presence anymore.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I don't understand what just happened. Dr. Karev has a very profound way of confusing me. I swear I thought that just for a second he and I were making a breakthrough. I thought we were starting to understand each other and we both understood that we made poor first impressions. But he's back to calling me names now? I really just don't quite understand what's happening. At this point, I'm not sure if he hates me or if he likes me or if it's a matter of both him hating me and liking me. I just don't get it. I just really hope that I can be off Dr. Robbins' service after today.

I stuff my hands in my scrub pants pockets and start walking back to the NICU. I walk through the automatic double doors and make my way back to the jaundice baby we were working on. Dr. Karev said to monitor his stats, so I guess I'll start by taking his temperature since that's the easiest. What I don't understand is how there are a bunch of wires hooked up to this baby that punch his stats into a computer. Why the hell do I have to monitor them if a computer does it for me? I pull apart the lock on the incubator and open it up. I've been working with this baby since my second day of internship and I haven't seen his parents yet. Dr. Karev says that they come by every now and again but I never saw them.

"Okay, buddy… sorry to disturb you again." I pick up a thermometer and comb a little patch of his hair back away from his ear. He's asleep; content with lying on his belly with his head to the side. "I know. First I stick you in your foot with a needle and now I'm bugging you while you're trying to snooze. I'm sorry." I put the doppler part of the thermometer inside his tiny little ear and wait for it to beep. "I don't know when your mommy and daddy are coming back… if they come back at all…but I'll stick around until they do." I pick up one of his monitors that's sticking to his chest and take off the adhesive pad to put a new one on it. "You don't mind if I slum it with you, do you?"

I could totally see myself specializing in Peds. I mean clearly the NICU isn't all just cute little babies that make you smile all day. But I think I could handle it. I could handle taking care of them and nursing them back to health. I don't want children of my own, so I might as well work with them. I genuinely don't want to have kids someday. I'd probably be the worst mother in the world and I don't feel like failing a child. I don't really think that any child deserves me as a mom. Now I'm not saying that I wouldn't love my kid, because I would. I'd be a heartless bitch if I spent nine months sharing a body with a baby and not love it. I'd love it to death. I'm just not cut out for motherhood and that's that.

If I were to have kids someday though, I would be sure to do it right. I wouldn't be perfect but I'd be a lot better than my own parents were. I would try really hard to make sure they don't have to know about the foster system. I wouldn't go a day without telling them that I love them, either. I would really try to be a good mom but I don't really think that kind of lifestyle is for me.

As soon as I attach the new sticky monitor to the baby's chest, his big eyes pop open and he looks right up at me. "Is this you asking me to leave you alone?" I use my two fingers to stroke his hair. His eyes are big and brown and he has the most perfect little lips and nose. He's so cute… "I can stop talking to you if you want me to. I bet you're not really used to being talked to. Dr. Karev probably doesn't talk to you much, does he?" He blinks his eyes and keeps his gaze fixated on me. He's really focused for a tiny little baby. He's gonna be smart. "Dr. Karev's a big jerk, isn't he?" When I say that, the baby cracks a smile. It might just be gas but I like to think that he agrees with me. "So I'm not the only one that sees it…"

You have to be a special kind of person to work with children all day. It really makes me wonder if Karev is as bad as he seems. He can't exactly be mean to kids if he's specializing in Peds. Maybe there's something underneath that asshole-ness that he refuses to outwardly show.

**X X X **

"I want her off the service. I mean it. I'm not working with her anymore." I stop dead in my tracks when I hear that. I take a couple steps back and hide around the corner. _Is he talking about me? _He told me to page him with the results of baby Jacob's new labs. He's not answering anyone's pages so I just thought that I should bring them to him. I know I'm just a crappy little intern but I really think that the labs suggest that baby Jacob can go home later on today or tomorrow. The immunoglobulin is working. _What did I do?_ I hold my breath and keep listening. "I don't care what you do with her. Send her to Bailey, Torres, Shepherd…I don't care. I want her off the service. I can't work with her. She's insubordinate, won't follow directions… I can't work with her anymore."

"Need I remind you what you were like as an intern? I never kicked you off my service because you were insubordinate or not following my directions. She's an INTERN, Alex. DEAL WITH IT. You're getting paid to TEACH her something." Dr. Robbins is taking back to him. _What the hell did I do? I did everything he asked of me! _"I'M the only one that can kick her off MY service and until she shows me the level of disrespect you're saying she shows, she's on my service. Why do you think I stuck her with you, Alex? I stuck her with you because she IS you. Quick learner, good recall…she WANTS to learn. Put on your big boy pants and DEAL with it."

I don't even know what I did. Why does he hate me so much? I'm really trying to pay attention, keep on my p's and q's and listen to him… but he's making it so hard. I really don't know what I've done. Should I even give him these labs?

"I got called down to OB for a consult and I'll take her with me on that. Go pull yourself together, Alex. I'm sticking her with you for rounds later." I swallow my pride and round the corner with the labs in my hand. Dr. Robbins smiles as soon as she sees me. "Hey Wilson…what's up?"

"…I have these labs for Dr. Karev." As hard as I'm trying right now, I still can't mask the tears in my voice that are threatening to fall from my eyes. _He doesn't like to wait until he asks for the results of the labs… just tell him. _Keeping my head down so I don't look at him, I just start rattling off the results. "Jacob Weston's bilirubin is steadily decreasing at about…. one level per half hour…if it keeps going at this rate it should fall into normal range in about seven hours…he can go home tonight or tomorrow morning. His stats are stable and the nurse gave him four ounces of formula that he kept down. He's stable…"

"Great." He mumbles under his breath and snatches the labs off me.

"Wilson, I have a consult down on OB that I want you to assist me with. Come on." Dr. Robbins motions for me to follow her and I gladly….GLADLY do.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Alex? Baby, are you okay?" She puts her hand to my forehead to check my temperature…but I'm not feeling sick. I feel fine. I'm just not in a good mood and I need to go to bed for the night. "You hardly touched your food… do you need me to fix you some soup or something else to eat?" She presses her lips to my temple and I resist the urge to push her away from me. I don't really want to be touched by her. It's nothing that she did—or anyone did, for that matter. It's just the fact of the matter that I'm in a bad mood and I don't want to be bothered. I put my fork down in my plate of spaghetti and push my chair out from the kitchen table.

"I'm fine." I mumble and pick my plate up. One of the things I love the most about Iz is that she cooks every night. Now to some people, that might not really be that big of a deal, but it is to me. I think it's amazing that she puts in the same amount of hours that I put in every day at the hospital and she still manages to come home, do laundry and cook a full course dinner, complete with dessert. I've always admired that about her. "I'm not hungry, babe… I had a long day." I open up the microwave and stick my plate inside it. Maybe I'll be hungry later. "I discharged three babies, operated on one and admitted four. I'm tired."

"Oh really?" She wraps her arms around my waist and puts her head in the middle of my back. "Tough day. You want a massage after you get out of the shower?"

"That sounds nice." My lips tug up into the first smile I've smiled all day. I think I'm starting to feel better now. Crazy how Iz just makes me feel so much better. That's what I was missing all day. I was missing her. Clearly I wasn't thinking, but now it just makes so much sense. I was doing…what I was doing today and I couldn't get my mind off it—off her rather, and all I needed was Iz to take my mind off what it was on. I make a mental note and tuck it away in my brain for the next time I'm forced to work with her. Matter fact, she's not even a her anymore. She's an IT. She's an IT and I don't even want to think about IT.

Still and yet, I feel a little bit guilty about just thinking about IT.


	6. Begin Again

"Actually, why don't I just text you?" I shove my hand in my pocket and take out my cell phone. "It's just that my schedule is all messed up and I really don't know what time is a good time for me. This week I work two days on two days off which is really hectic but starting on Monday I work every second day… it's weird." I go to create a new contact on my phone and look up at him. _God he's so cute._ I had an awful day today up until the point when I went down to OB with Dr. Robbins. My day got so much better in OB. "You know…. life on an intern." Playfully, I wink at him.

He looks me up and down like he's been doing all day. I notice that his eyes tend to freeze at my waist every time he does that. This time, I watch as his eyes stop on my chest and come back up to my mouth, then finally to my eyes. I snap my fingers to get his attention and stick my tongue out at him. "My face is up here…not down there. If you're gonna look down there, you could at least…take me to dinner first or something." I wink again. Also, if I'm not good at anything else in my life, I kick ASS at flirting. I flirt really well…and I've been doing it all day. I wasn't all that popular in high school…I was kind of a nerd. But I DID get voted biggest flirt of my graduating class.

"You're not gonna blow me off are you? If I did take you to dinner…" He rests his hand on the doorframe and tilts his head with a lopsided grin. He has really white teeth and a really nice smile. "You're not gonna pull one of those 'don't call me, I'll call you' kind of things? It'd really suck if I spent all this time with you today and I can't even get a phone call or a text message…"

"Can't you just settle for seeing me here tomorrow? I think I'll be back in OB tomorrow and even if I'm not… you can come find me." With my phone still in my hand, I cross my arms and carelessly flip my hair over my shoulder. "Or would you miss me way too much? I tend to have that effect on people."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… what makes you think you'll be able to deal with not seeing me?" He scoffs.

"Face it vagina dude… I'm WAY out of your league." I'm really not that conceited, I swear. I'm just flirting so don't get the wrong impression. Like I said before, I KNOW for a fact that I'm not ugly by any means. But I'm not conceited like that. "I'm still trying to figure out how you got my attention, actually. Because I never look at guys like you…" Which is actually a lie. He's totally and completely my type. I don't really discriminate against boys but I do tend to be attracted to biracial boys with nice smiles and nice bodies and funny personalities. I've had three serious boyfriends in my life and they've all been kind of the same.

My first boyfriend was the best boyfriend I've ever had. He was really tall and he played on my high school's football team. He was Steph's skin-tone…maybe a little darker and he was so nice to me. He was literally the nicest boy I've ever dated in my life, but he moved and that was that. Vagina dude kind of reminds me of my first boyfriend. He's handsome, funny and he seems really nice.

"Oh so you're just gonna act like it wasn't my devastatingly good looks that caught your attention? You're not all that special." He jokes. I watch again as his eyes wander all over my body…they stop at my waist then come back up to my face once more. "…But you do look a lot better in jeans as opposed to scrubs…" This time after he looks at my boy though, he licks his lips.

"Can't say I've never heard that before." I look over and catch a glimpse of Stephanie waving her hand at me, signaling that she's ready to go. "So are you gonna give me your number before I go home for the night or not?"

"Here." He takes my phone off me and starts punching his number into it. "I will be seeing you tomorrow though, right?" When he's done, he hands my phone back to me and starts to stare at my lips.

"I promise you'll see me tomorrow. Goodnight, Jason."

**X X X **

As soon as Steph opens the door to our house, I walk back to the bathroom. I always get in the shower first because I don't spend nearly as much time in the shower as Steph does. Steph likes to soak in the shower and use all the hot water so to compromise, we decided that I should go first. I shut the door behind me and turn on the light above the sink. When I catch a glimpse of myself, I'm a little bit taken aback by what I see. I look really tired—I am really tired, don't get me wrong but I didn't think it'd show this bad on my face.

Today started out shitty but all in all, it turned out to be an okay day I think. I'm just gonna stop letting Dr. Karev get to me. He has something against me for some reason and I really just don't know what his problem is. It's not my responsibility to figure out what his issue is so I'm just not even gonna let it bother me. It's whatever at this point. I don't know what his problem with me and even Dr. Robbins said that I didn't do anything wrong. I think he's just looking for somebody to boss around and I just so happen to be his victim.

I grab the rim of my shirt and pull it over my head. I toss it over in the hamper we keep in the corner of the bathroom. In order to save on the water bill, Steph and I both agreed that we'll wash our clothes together…we just have to be sure to sort through what's mine and what's hers whenever everything's all clean. I don't think it'd be that hard to do because I'm a size bigger than Steph in both jeans and shirts. She wears smalls, I wear mediums. She wears size fours and I wear fives.

I unbutton my jeans and pull them down. I shove them in the hamper with my shirt and walk over to the shower. Maybe tomorrow after work I'll try out the bathtub. The way the bathroom is set up is kind of weird. On one side of it, the sink and the toilet are right across from each other and if you round a sharp corner, the shower is there and about ten feet away from the shower is the tub. I think this bathroom was built with handicapped people in mind because the toilet doesn't have a handle to flush it. There's a button on the side that flushes it and the bowl part of it is HUGE. I almost fell in the other day. Also, the bathtub is one of those walk-in ones. There are jet-streams on all corners of it and there's a little hump inside it that acts as a seat. This is honestly a bathroom I could see in my dreams.

I reach inside the shower and turn the nozzle to start the water. Just as I find the right temperature of my water, the bathroom door opens up and Steph walks inside with me. "I threw that pizza in the oven along with some frozen French fries. I know it's not much but I know you don't feel like cooking and neither do I."

"You're right, I don't feel like cooking…but I'm starving so thanks for that. I was just gonna make myself a pack of noodles." I take my bra and my underwear off and put them both in the hamper as well. I hide my nakedness behind the wall and peer around to look at her. She's sitting on the toilet but I can't see anything besides the side of her buttcheek. "Can you hand me a razor? And the shampoo and conditioner?"

"Your shampoo and conditioner are both in the shower hanging on the shower caddy." She grabs toilet paper and wipes herself. "And the razors are in the shower caddy as well."

"No, gimme that shampoo. I wanna use that one in the brown bottle…it looks like it smells good. I hate the way that purple shit smells." I respectfully look away from her as she gets up off the toilet and pulls her pants up.

"There's no way in hell you're using that shampoo. That's mine and you can't use it." She busily tosses her curls up into a ponytail and I just stare at her. Is she serious about the damn shampoo? It's shampoo… "Jo, you seriously can't use my shampoo. Your hair will fall out or something along the lines of that. I'll run to the store tomorrow after work and grab you some new shampoo but you can't use mine. It's for women of color…okay?"

"…Is there really a difference?" I can't help but crack a little smile at that. "Like…if I used black people shampoo and you used white people shampoo, would it really matter?" I slide open the glass door and step into the shower.

"I don't know if anything seriously would happen but I'm not chancing it." She laughs right along with me.

"Maybe my hair would curl up all crazy like yours!" I tilt my head back and get my hair wet underneath the spray. "…Steph, you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here… what do you need?"

"…I was just thinking that I don't think I ever thanked you…for letting me move in with you, I mean. I don't think you understand how much this BEATS living in my old place." I turn around and let the water hit the front of my body. I really didn't properly thank her. If it wasn't for her, I'd be sloshing around wearing flip flops in my old shower right now, preparing to go to sleep on an empty stomach. "So thank you."

"I told you that you didn't have to thank me. I was going to ask you regardless. Even if you had a super nice apartment and stuff… I would've still asked you. I wouldn't have asked anybody else but you. Leah's disgusting—she doesn't like to clean up after herself. Heather's so irresponsible with things that it's not even funny…and what the hell do I look like living with Shane? At least you're a clean person and you're responsible. I won't have to hound you for rent money."

"Still….I feel like I owe you a thank you. The thing is that I didn't live in a good place and you gave me a good place… so shut up and say 'You're welcome, Jo.' Okay?"

"…You're welcome Jo."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

For the third time in less than ten minutes, I look over at the clock and sigh. It feels like I've been lying here for an hour when in reality, I've only been lying down for half an hour. I can already tell where this night going…and I'm not going to like it. I've had my fair share of nights like this of course. But all these nights usually came from me staying up at night worrying about what Iz was doing back at the hospital while she was staying there. That's the last time I can recall having a night like this. I don't even want to think about the reason that I'm lying awake tonight because it pisses me off that the very reason I'm having trouble sleeping tonight isn't the same reason it was the last time.

I look over at the spot next to me and make sure that she's still asleep. When I'm sure that she is I get out of the bed, careful not to wake her. She stirs softly but remains in a deep, peaceful slumber. Since I can't sleep, it's no use for me to just lie here waiting when I know that I'm not going to sleep anytime soon. I walk out of the bedroom and go down the hall to the staircase. I go into the living room and plop down on the couch and turn the TV on. Maybe if I just allow myself to think about it for a little while and get it all out of my system then I'll be fine. I already made plans to go to work tomorrow, request for IT to be my intern for the day and then I'm going to try to put the way I'm feeling aside and get to know who she is as a person.

Maybe I'm just confused. Because I swear I'm changing but then again I don't feel like I am. I'm pretty sure the reason I'm as messed up as I am right now is because it's been a month, two weeks and three days…but who's counting, right? It's been that long and I haven't even thought about it until today…and that's a change for me. It really is. Because I don't usually go longer than a week without it but it's been forever and I haven't even thought about it.

When Iz first got sick, I completely lost all interest for it. She was my main focus, you know? I didn't even have time to think about anything else besides taking care of her and making sure she was okay… sex didn't even cross my mind, and it still doesn't cross my mind as much as it used to. It's not that I'm not attracted to her because I am—I'm just as attracted to Iz as I've ever been. I just can't…for the life of me, I can't figure out why it never crossed my mind when I see Iz naked all the time but it was the first thing I thought about today when I really got a good look at her.

I've wanted and lusted after many girls before, but the thing is… I usually get them when I want them. No exaggeration there, either. When I was fifteen, I thought my high school nurse was hot. She totally was though. She wasn't any older than about twenty six or twenty seven and she was totally hot. I wanted her real bad and one day during lunch, I had a "nosebleed" and I went to see her and never left her office until the last period of the day. That's not really the most ideal way for a kid to lose his virginity but that's just how it happened. Case and point, I wanted the nurse and so I had the nurse.

When I first got my job here, I wanted Iz so bad. I wanted Iz so bad that I could taste her. It took me a while to finally get her and keep her but I finally did it and now she's mine. Again, I wanted her and I got her.

I'm just not sure what's gonna happen with the fact that I want the intern and I can't have the intern. I have excellent will-power but I'm terrified that I'm gonna do something I regret if I'm ever alone with her. I'm not sure if I'd ever forgive myself if I cheated on Iz. I _do _have quite the history but if there's one thing I'm not, it's a cheater. I'm not a cheater and I've never been a cheater when I'm in a serious committed relationship like the one I'm in with Iz. It bothers the hell outta me that I think that I might consider it if it was with the intern.

I really don't want to go back to my old ways but it's seriously all I've been thinking about. I worked so hard to change this shit about myself. I'm way too mature these days to be taking chicks to on-call rooms and doing my business in there but the only thing that I could think about today was taking her to an on-call room and spending a good two…maybe even three hours in there. I'm also way too committed to Iz to even fantasize about another chick but here I am…imagining that the little prissy intern I got saddled with is most likely amazing in the sack.

I'm pissing myself off so bad with this, though. I've been with myself for 32 whole years and I still can't figure out my own logic. I don't get how I have an ex-model for a fiancé and I still want an intern. _Because the intern is fucking hot. _I can't be nice to her. I can't work with her and be nice to her when I think about her the way I think about her. I'm desperate at this point though. It's getting to the point that I'm losing sleep over this. I'm losing sleep over her and that's not good.

I don't know how to shake this. I have to come up with another alternative because clearly being standoffish towards her isn't helping, otherwise I wouldn't be in this predicament right now. I need to try something else…maybe being nicer will help. I don't know…. I'll ask Mere tomorrow. She'll know exactly what to do.

**X X X **

"So you're thinking about ditching Izzie for Ponytail McGee?" Cristina's walking right beside me, mirroring my every single step like an obnoxious four year old. "Every single day you never cease to surprise me. First you tell me that you don't wanna be evil spawn anymore and you wanna get married and be all angelic…then you present me with this? I gotta admit that you keep me guessing."

"See this is exactly why I didn't want to tell you…this is why I was looking for Mere because you clearly don't get it." I adjust my white coat because the weight of the electronic chart in my pocket is weighing it down on one side. "Never did those words come out of my mouth. Never did I say that I don't wanna marry Iz anymore because I still do." Out of stress, I comb my fingers through my hair and continue to walk down the hallway of the first floor with her so we can grab the interns for rounds. "I'm just saying that I'm a man and I have needs and those needs haven't been fulfilled in a while and I found myself thinking about fulfilling those needs with…her." I really wish Mere was here. I wish she didn't decide to take the day off because Zola's running a fever. "Does that constitute as cheating?"

"Totally not cheating." We both reach the elevator at the same time and she pushes the button to call it down to our floor. "I mean if you told Izzie that you thought about that, she'd probably get all mad and go batshit crazy on you, but it's totally not cheating. Sometimes I imagine that Owen's a heart while we're going at it… it makes it a lot more exciting ." She shrugs.

I step onto the elevator and step aside so she can stand next to me. "Yeah, I don't think that's the same thing. It's not like I'm fantasizing about screwing a pancreas… I'm fantasizing about screwing another woman. Somehow I think Iz would understand if I said I imagined that I had sex with a pornstar but if she heard that it was another girl that works her, I think she'd freak and rightfully so."

"So don't tell her." She pushes the button to go to the third floor and the elevator doors close. "Why don't you go home tonight and get your rocks off with your fiancé…and she doesn't have to know that you wish she was an intern. Just make sure you don't scream out the intern's name in the throes of passion because that would warrant a dumping and no wedding." She takes a sip of the coffee that she grabbed from the coffee cart. "By the way, how are you feeling about the wedding now that you're falling in love with an intern? How are your feet? Are they freezing yet?"

"My toes are nice and toasty and again… you don't get it. I'm not falling in love with the stupid intern I just think she's hot. There's a difference." I sigh. "The intern's a bitch. I would never in a million years even think about dropping Iz for that bitch… she's a royal pain in my ass. But she's hot and that's my entire dilemma. Her personality sucks, it's her looks that I'm in love with."

"Is she hotter than Izzie?"

"Definitely not." The elevator finally stops moving and the doors open up. "I'm just trying to figure out why in the world I wasn't even thinking about sex until yesterday. Iz and I haven't touched each other months and I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just thinking about if she was gonna be okay. Why all of a sudden am I back to sex-crazed me?"

"You sound like you have a real case here." She turns and looks at me. "You want my expert opinion?" I slightly nod my head, just a little bit afraid of what she might actually say to me. Mere's usually really good when it comes to my relationship advice. The only advice I ever take seriously from Cristina is work related advice. But hey…at this point, anything helps. "I think you should at least try to befriend the girl. If you can't sleep with her, at least you guys can be friends… and who knows? You might find that you actually like being her friend."

"…Yeah, I doubt it." I yank open the door to get into the intern locker room and hold it for her to walk inside first. "But I'll give it a try." I walk in after Cristina and sit by the sinks. I don't want to walk too far inside just in case the girls in here are still naked. Even though they're nothing little interns, they still deserve some degree of privacy when they're getting dressed.

"Murphy, you're on Bailey's service… Brooks go down to Neuro with Shepherd… Ross you're with me…" I listen as Cristina rattles off their assignments. Everybody sounds like they're happy with their assignments so far. I haven't heard any disgruntled moans and groans yet. "Edwards you're also on Dr. Bailey's service for the day…she's without Dr. Grey so she needs two sets of hands. Wilson, Dr. Karev requested you on Pediatrics for the day so go up there and with him…the rest of you go to the pit and don't kill anyone."

"…Dr. Yang?" I hear her voice and she sounds upset, which makes me chuckle. She really needs to get over herself. "…Isn't there ANY other service I can be put on? It's just that… I've been on Pediatrics for the last three days and I feel like my education is being compromised by me not being allowed to go on any other service and—"

"Nobody cares, hairball. You were requested on Pediatrics and that's where you go. If you have an issue with it, you can take that up with Dr. Robbins not me."

"Right…sorry." As soon as she apologizes, Cristina walks out of the room with intern Ross following closely behind her.

Well here goes nothing for the day.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Look alive. We're going to work on the actual Peds floor today…no NICU for the first half of the day…. Look like you want to learn something." The tone of his voice is different today but still condescending towards me. His voice is more cheerful today. No offense, but it's hard to be happy at work when all the residents and attendings pick on you. Even Dr. Yang chimed in on the name calling. What is it with me? Why do they hate me? They don't call Steph or Leah or Heather names. They call them by their last names…why do I get all the names thrown at me? I don't know, maybe I'm being a baby, but it really does hurt my feelings how they don't even give me the respect to learn my name.

"Okay." I whisper and keep following him down a long, yellow hallway. I really don't want to be on Pediatrics anymore. Can't I just go down to OB again? At least Jason knows my name…and at least he treats me like I'm actually wanted. I'm nothing but a big inconvenience to Dr. Karev. Today really might be the day that I cry. I've been holding it in and holding it in for these three days but I don't know if I can anymore. We get to the room of a little kid that's still fast asleep. My hands are shaking really badly because I want to cry but I steady them and present for him. "…Kelsey Parker, four years old… she's waiting for a kidney transplant."

"Yep and UNOS called, there's a kidney coming from Florida for her today." He walks over to the little girl's bed and gently pulls covers away from her. "Her parents are on their way here, her surgery's scheduled for this afternoon." He pushes a button on a monitor above the baby girl's head and it starts softly beeping. I'm not sure what that monitor does. "I thought about asking Dr. Wilson to scrub in with Robbins and me on the transplant, but I heard through the grapevine that she wanted off Peds… have anybody else that might want to scrub in with us?"

"…Are you serious?" He's gonna let me see the inside of an OR? What's the occasion? Is it my birthday?! "You're gonna let me scrub in on a kidney transplant?!"

"I was… but then I heard that you want off Peds."

"No…. I don't want off Peds… not me. Nope. Uh-uh. I'm fine with Peds." I knew this had to pay off eventually. I wasn't being tortured by people that hate me for no reason. I KNEW this had to pay off. "Anything you need me to get before the surgery? Labs? Pre-Op screenings? Anything?"

"Hold your horses, Princess." He hooks a bag of fluid into her IV. "You will scrub in, you will stand back and observe and I might let you hold a retractor. Don't get too excited…you're still—"

"A nothing little intern, I got it." I finish his sentence, roll my eyes and tuck my hair behind my ears. "Can you please just stop calling me Princess? I don't like it." I ask him nicely for the millionth time. At this point, I'd be less insulted if he started calling me "hairball" like Dr. Yang calls me. I just don't like the whole concept of him thinking I'm a princess when I'm really not. I hate that. I sigh and lean against the little girl's bed while I watch him take care of her IV and her monitors. "Why aren't her parents already here? Shouldn't they be here?" _She probably has deadbeat ass parents as well. _

"They have to work, you know…" He starts writing something down on a paper chart. He keeps glancing up at the monitors and writing.

"Yeah, but shouldn't at least one of them be here? She's four years old in kidney failure with needles all in her body and she's probably scared to death… I thought for sure that somebody would at least sit here with her…." _I don't think work is a valid excuse. I don't want to have children, but if I did have them and my poor, sweet, innocent, four year old baby girl was in the hospital, I wouldn't leave her side. She's gonna need her mommy. _"Kids this small need their mommies…"

"Not everybody's life is that easy, Princess. It's not fair to judge."

"I SAID STOP CALLING ME PRINCESS." _Just calm down. He's an idiot…he's not worth screaming at. _I look over at the little girl to make sure I didn't wake her up with my little outburst. She's still sleeping peacefully. "…Stop calling me that and stop assuming that my life is perfect because you see a damn watch on my wrist. You don't know shit about me." _Shut your mouth, Jo. Shut your mouth. You're gonna get yourself fired. _"God… I don't know why you keep requesting me to be on your damn service if all you're gonna do is insult me. I'd rather…" I stop myself. "Just stop it…please. And I'm not judging the little girl's parents I just…"

He looks at me with wide, honest eyes. For the first time since I've met him, I feel like he's listening to what I have to say. I don't feel like he's prejudging me or not listening. I feel like he's actually hearing me out. I swallow a lump in my throat, hold back my tears and keep going. "I just didn't understand why her parents—or ANY parents for that matter would just leave her here… your parents can't just leave you. It does things to you…"

"It's not for you to understand though, Wilson. If you can't handle this—"

"I can handle it, Dr. Karev… I'm just wondering. How someone could just leave their child. I don't know…" I take a step away from the bed. "Maybe I'm wrong for just assuming and I'm sorry for that… but I don't know, my own mother left ME at a fire station when I was a baby and I know what that's like… I don't think any child should have to go through that. I know what that's like… I bounced from foster home to foster home to foster home until I got sick of it and even then, I lived in my CAR. I'm sorry that you got the wrong impression of me, but I'm NOT a prissy princess. I got into good colleges because I worked my ASS off and this watch?" I take my hand out of my pocket and hold my wrist up. "This is the nicest thing I own… and it was gift from the ONLY person that ever gave a shit about me…the ONLY person that was ever at any of my graduations…and her son works for the company that makes them, so… I don't know…" _Did you really just tell your asshole boss your whole life story? _"Just don't call me princess. Call me hairball, call me anything else…just not that."

"…I'm sorry." He holds out his hand to me. "…Why don't we start over, Dr. Wilson? I'm Alex… Dr. Karev."

I shake his hand. "…Josephine Wilson…but you can call me Jo."


	7. Goodnight

**A/N: **So, this chapter is REALLY gonna pick up with the drama and this is where we really get into the direction of the story and the heart of the plot. With that being said, some things in this chapter won't completely add up to the things that happen in the show. Please excuse the discrepancies and remember that this story is just slightly AU. The timeline of how things go down in this story won't totally correspond to how things happened in the show. Also, there's some **M** rated content in this chapter but not to the point that I'm changing the story's rating yet.

Enjoy and make sure you leave me reviews. Let me know in the reviews if you like where you think the story's gonna go. Thanks! :)

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><p>"What exactly are we looking for again?" She moves her leg to the side to take the weight off it and leans forward. "I thought you said she took really well to the transplant." I can tell that she's tired because her voice is jagged and raspy and her eyes are heavy. I've spent the entire day with her and I must say that she's a lot tougher than I gave her credit for. I didn't think she'd be able to scrub in on the transplant surgery because I gave her a shit-ton of post-op notes to finish. She managed to finish all of them and still make it in time enough to scrub in with me. Plus, she hasn't complained at all about the work that Robbins and I have been throwing and throwing at her. She's tough.<p>

"She did… but I'm looking for any signs of rejection. Kids are way more resilient than adults but the chance of rejection in children is way higher. She's gonna need to be monitored for an hour straight and periodically overnight." If I'm being honest, I have to say that I do think of her differently than I did when this day first started. I guess it's my fault for prejudging her because the more I actually sat and got to know her, the more I can see that she's really not bitchy. She's actually funny and she has a really chill personality. "If you wanna run down to the cafeteria and see if they still have coffee out, you can." I flip through Kelsey's chart to compare her old stats with her new ones. "It's only 7:30…they might still have the coffee carts out."

"I'm fine… I don't really like coffee that much." She leans forward again but grabs Kelsey's foot this time. She brushes her thumb over the little bumps that form her toes and stares into the tiny bed with adoration in her eyes. "…Why do you suppose little kids get the short ends of the sticks sometimes?" She talks at me instead of to me because her attention is completely focused on the four year old that's still laying asleep waiting for her anesthesia to wear off. I think Jo's gonna be fairly easy to teach. She's not like I was when I was an intern. She already has incredible bedside manner so that's one less thing I have to teach her. "It's like… when you see adults in kidney failure or liver failure or whatever, they usually deserve it because nine times outta ten, they probably drank themselves or smoked themselves into their fate. But with babies…they haven't even been here long enough to deserve anything."

"Sometimes life's just crappy I guess." I take my eyes off the chart for a split second to watch what she's doing. She's compassionately rubbing the little girl's hand now. I work in rooms with kids and their parents all day and I know the kind of touch that she's giving to the little girl, so I wonder… "…You got kids, Wilson?"

"Me?" She blows air out of her closed lips like you see people spit out a mouthful of their beverage in movies. "Hell no…" She stops rubbing Kelsey's hand for a second and looks up at me. "…I don't want kids. I'm not the mothering type, you know? If somebody ever gave me kids they made a huge mistake because I'm NOT a mother." I raise my eyebrow at her and smirk. She smiles back at me. "I'm a doctor…when will I ever have time to feed a kid or take care of it? I don't even realize when _I've _gone a day without eating or sleeping, can you imagine me taking care of a child? I'd be the worst mother ever or something like that."

"Geez, chill out killer." I nudge her in the arm with my elbow. "You looked pretty natural holding Kelsey's hand, so I was just wondering." I sit back down in the chair next to her so we can both continue monitoring our patient. "You're what… 27, 28?" She nods her head, right back into the memorization-with-the-kid state she was in a second ago. "You might change your mind. I'm a completely different person than I was when I was your age. I used to want to be a plastic surgeon."

"Plastics?"

"Yep…told you I used to be totally different." I look at the little girl in the bed as well. "Never used to want to get married, never used to want to have a family, never used to want to own my own place… you'll change more than you're willing to admit. Just give it time. There's no way you're making it out of this program the same person you were as when you came in."

"Look at you now." She looks over at me with a half-smile on her face. "You're married, aren't you? To the blonde that works in Dermatology? And seeing the way you are with the kids that come in here, I assume you want babies with your wife. And you don't exactly strike me as the type that lives with your parents still, so I'm guessing you have your own house… am I close?"

"Yeah, you're pretty close." I don't even think she's hot anymore. That went away a couple hours ago. She's actually beautiful. Her newfound personality adds to that a whole lot but I can't even think about sleeping with her anymore. I think being her friend is actually helping. Remind me to thank Cristina. Still and yet though, I'm completely wonderstruck by her facial features. Her face is so childlike but adult at the same time…she's unlike anyone I've ever seen before. "Not married yet though. We're looking at October 3rd for the wedding."

"Fall wedding…that's cute." She rests her chin on the bars of the patient bed and sighs. "You guys have colors and songs and cakes and decorations picked out yet?"

"We're thinking multicolored would be nice and we're cake testing sometime this week."

"Good luck. Weddings are stressful." She tucks a piece of her chestnut brown hair behind her ear. "That's why I'm glad that I never want to get married…that's just way too much to worry about."

"Geez Jo… is there anything you do want to do? You don't want to be a mother, you don't want to get married… Anything that you DO want to do with your life?"

"…I wanna be a surgeon." She shrugs her shoulders.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" I ask, but there's good reason why I'm asking. I'm not asking just because I want to be nosy and learn more about her. Okay, I do want to know if she's seeing anyone, but I've just been wondering her view on relationships if she never wants to get married and never wants to have kids. So with that, I'll clarify. "Because when you're in a relationship, you gotta think of it this way… Either you're gonna break up with that person or you're gonna be with them for the rest of your life. You can't just stay boyfriend and girlfriend for the rest of your life."

"Why not?" She turns her head to me again. "But no… I don't have a boyfriend." I watch her cheek poke out where she put her tongue in it at. "…I don't know…define boyfriend. I'm… I'm not single but I'm not taken either. I'm… talking to someone…going on a date with someone after work tonight, actually." She licks her lips. "It's not really a date, it's more like a drink…over at Joe's."

"Guy from OB?"

"How'd you know?"

"You two spent the day yesterday looking at each other with big goo-goo eyes." I look down at my watch. Wow… we've been talking for half an hour already… "It's eight o'clock." I stretch out my arms and change the conversation because I really don't want to hear about her and the idiot from OB. I don't care to hear about her relationship status anymore. "Let's go round one more time and I'll let you get outta here for the night." I stand up and stretch out some more.

"I don't get off until nine." She stands up too. I notice that she has a piece of dark blue fuzz on the seat of her scrub pants but I won't tell her because she'd totally know that I was looking at her ass. I kind of wish that the fuzz was in her hair so then I could have an excuse to touch her without looking like a jerk that just wanted to touch her ass. "Rounds don't take an hour."

It's not even that I want to grab her ass or anything like that. I just want to touch her because she doesn't seem real. Talking to her is like talking to the female version of myself. From the shitty upbringing to the initially wanting to stay single and not have children. She's like talking to me and I'm having a hard time believing that she's real. I need a reason to touch her to show my mind that this girl is not a figment of my imagination.

"I know you don't get off until nine, Wilson." I hold the door to the patient's room open for her. "Am I not allowed to do something nice and let you off early for your date?"

"What did you, get laid?" She walks beside me with her hands in her pockets. "You're never this nice to me."

"…Something like that." I crack a smile and laugh.

"Dr. Karev?" She stops walking dead in her tracks and looks at the ground like she's nervous.

"Alex…" I mutter.

"Oh. Well… Alex?" She looks up and looks me in my eyes. She bites her lip and looks around. "…Can I be on your service on Monday? I… I kinda like Peds...and you're a really good teacher." She rocks back and forth on her feet and smiles a playful smile. "Once you get past the douchebaggery and stuff, I mean."

"Just for that, no. You can't be on Peds on Monday. You can't go around calling me a douchebag…even if I am a douchebag." I stick my tongue out at her to show her that I'm just being facetious.

"Oh, WHATEVER." She rolls her eyes. "Seriously though… I like Peds."

"I'll see what I can do about Monday. You really should spend time on other services though."

"I know…"

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"I'll be home later, Steph. I'm running over to Joe's with Jason for a drink." I shove my legs into the pair of jeans I stowed away in my locker and zip them up. "Can you just leave the door unlocked? I don't think I'll be out late because he's not off tomorrow…he works early." I grab her deodorant out of her locker and roll it underneath my armpits. "Helloooo…. Stephanie? Are you hearing me?"

"I heard you." She's lying down on the benches with her hands underneath her glasses and over her eyes. "…Do you have any idea the kind of day I've had?" She sounds like she's been put through the ringer. "I had to stand there and watch while Dr. Bailey ran a man's bowel…for three…freaking…hours. My feet are screaming at me."

"Oooh." I grab my long sleeved purple t-shirt and pop it over my head, maneuvering my arms in a way that won't allow me to get deodorant marks on the ends of the shirt. "I'm sorry for that. But I had an amazing day. I was so wrong about Alex. Steph, he's amazing." I throw my boots down and shove my feet into them. "He's so good with the children and he's literally so sweet. And he's FUNNY. I was so wrong about him…I almost feel bad for trash-talking him the way I did before."

"Dr. Bailey really is a freakin' Nazi. She acted the way Medusa would act…only worse." She sits up on the bench and adjusts her glasses back to normal. "Jo, I was contemplating suicide by lunchtime. I wanna go back to Cardio with Yang so bad that I'd slit my wrists and sacrifice the blood to the devil."

"He told a little girl that he put magic in her IV bag to make her feel better, Steph. He told her that the red stuff coming out of her arm was Tinkerbell's tears because she was weirded out by the idea of blood. He's so good with children and he's so sweet. The way he talks about his wife…he was gushing to me about the wedding and he sounded so excited and it was so cute. He thinks it's cool to talk to kids about… fairy dust and unicorn poop. My heart melted today."

"I didn't even know one man had that much bowel in his body. THERE WAS SO MUCH BOWEL."

I sigh when I realize that she's really not listening to me. I'm so serious though. I was so very wrong about Alex. He's awesome. I really just wanna be on Peds for the rest of my life. I know interns and residents don't specialize right away but I swear I think I just chose my specialty. I want to stay on Peds and I want to continue learning from him. He's the most amazing teacher. He's patient, kind and so easygoing with the kids. He's really not that big of an asshole. He's actually a big ass softie. He's gonna make such a good daddy and his wife is actually lucky. I used to think that she was sick in the head to deal with a coldhearted bastard like him but he's actually great. I'm so surprised.

"I'll see you at home, Steph."

**X X X**

"But you basically look at vaginas all day." I grab the tiny black straw that's in my drink and stir it, listening to the ice cubes clank off the sides of the glass. I wonder if he noticed that I've only taken a sip of my drink. It's not that I'm not hungry or thirsty or whatever and I don't want to be here. It's just that I'm extremely tired and like I said before, I don't like drinking hardcore around people that I don't know because alcohol makes me really loopy. The martini that he bought me tastes really good but I'm pacing myself with it so I don't get super drunk. "Do you ever get any smelly ones?"

"…What kind of question is that?" He turns his bottle of beer up to his lips and drinks it. "Most of—not all of—but most of my patients know how to bathe properly before they see me. So…I can't say that I'm around gross smelly ones all day. But there are some girls that are just… not clean." He puts his beer bottle down and folds his hands atop of the table. "And there's more to it than just looking at vaginas all day, thank you very much."

"Oh I forgot that you also give breast exams…those are crucial." I take a sparing sip of my drink and look across the table at him. I've smiled more today than I've smiled in a very long time. Today has just been an awesome day all around. "Sorry but I don't think it takes much effort to squeeze a girl's boob and catch a baby when it just falls out of her."

"It also doesn't take any effort to walk around with your lips glued to real surgeons' asses all day girl." He winks at me and takes one more sip of his beer.

"I have you know I held a retractor today… I'm moving up on the totem pole." I drum my fingers along on the wood of the table. "How does one choose The Vagina Squad as a specialty? Did you just go into it for the sake of staring at vaginas all day or did you really decide that you want to help women?"

"…Little bit of both." He admits. "Why do you insist on busting my balls all the time? I hope you know that when you're my girl, this has gotta stop. I can't have a girl that busts my balls all the time…no matter how beautiful she is."

"…Oh, _when _I'm your girl? I guess you're not one for courtship…" I look down at the table. _He called me beautiful… and he basically just admitted that he wants me to be his girlfriend. ALRIGHT! This day can't get any better than this. I got to get inside the OR today, I held a retractor, I got blood on my hands and now I have a boyfriend? _"But thank you…" I move a piece of my bangs out of my face. "You're not so bad looking yourself. And IF I'm ever your girlfriend…I guess I'll consider easing up on you, vagina boy."

"Did I just get shot down?" He's looking at me like I'm literally the prettiest thing he's ever seen in his life. I've had enough boys looking at me in my lifetime and it's not really that hard for me to tell when they're smitten by me. The look in his eyes says it all…he's in love with me—or the way I look. I would totally say yes if he asked me to be his girlfriend tonight but I really just don't think that he should've fallen this hard for me already. I've only known the guy for three days and this is only our first date.

"Little bit." I'll let him down easy because I don't want to burn any bridges with him. I really like this guy and I can really see myself being his girlfriend but I need a little bit longer with him before I fall for him like I can tell he's fallen for me. "…Not saying that you'll stay shot down, though."

"…I wanna know you, Jo." He eases his hand across the table and touches my hand. Like they always do whenever I'm confused, my eyes squint and my eyebrows furrow. What does he mean by that? He already knows me… and if he's admitting that he doesn't really know me, that's just yet another reason why I don't think that he should be this crazy over me. "I want to know everything about you… Everything that nobody else knows about you? I want to know… because somehow, I think you're more than just a beautiful face."

I stare down at the table. My stomach is in knots. It's been so long since a guy has given me butterflies like this. "…Shut up…" _I'm really not even that pretty. He's gotta stop calling me beautiful. He's making me blush. _"…You wouldn't think I was pretty if I was just some random girl in the bar."

"You're wrong." Real smoothly, he slides his hand inside mine and squeezes it. "If you were out there with them…" He motions with his head to the crowd of girls that are dancing on the small dancefloor towards the back of the bar. "If you were out there with them and I walked in here and saw you out there in those jeans and that tight shirt… I'd sit here and stare and wait until I came up with something special and it was the right time to make my move. And right when you were ready to slip out that door for the night, I'd make my way to that dancefloor and I'd make you mine…please believe that. I'd have to get me some of you… there wouldn't be an option."

"…And if that's any indication of how you felt when you first saw me then—"

He quickly interrupts me. "When I first saw you walk onto my floor with Robbins, I was thinking 'Lord have mercy'."

"You're sweet." I look over at the clock that's hanging on the wall above the bartenders. "…It's getting really late. We should probably head home for the night. Well… I should head home before Stephanie goes to bed for the night because I don't really want her to have to leave the door unlocked while she's in the house sleeping, so…" I reach into my purse and scrounge up three bucks to leave a tip for the cocktail waitress. I can't really afford to leave her this money but I refuse to let Jason pay for everything. "Um… we should do this again… like tomorrow night when you get off work. I'm off tomorrow, so whatever time is good…"

"Meet me here tomorrow at eight." He stands up from his side of the table. "Text me when you get home to let me know you got there okay…. with your crappy car and all, the last thing I need is for you to be broken down on the side of the road."

That makes me laugh. "I totally will." I push the straps of my purse up on my shoulder. "So…tomorrow at eight. I'll see you then?"

"See you." He nods his head. I start to walk off towards the door. I'll feel bad if I make Steph wait up for me. I know that she had a shitty day at work today and she probably just wants to go to bed and I'd feel horrible if I made her go to sleep with the door unlocked. Even though we live on the quiet side of Seattle, anything can happen with an unlocked door. "Oh and wait a second…" Jason calls back to me so I stop walking and backpedal towards him. "About earlier… yes or no?" He asks. I hesitate for a minute because I'm not sure what he's talking about. "About you being my girl… yes or no?"

"…Yeah, I guess that'd be cool." I crack a smile.

"And you're not gonna leave me without a hug or a kiss goodnight, are you?" He gives me that devilish grin. I jokingly roll my eyes and take one more step back towards him. Again, I hesitate for a second but this time it's because I'm unsure of this. I like him but I really think this is all happening too fast. I feel like I'm in a high school relationship with how fast this is all going. But because we a_re _in fact….boyfriend and girlfriend, I tilt my head to the side so we don't bump noses, close my eyes and put my lips against his. No tongue….just a kiss.

"Goodnight." I whisper to him after we pull away from each other.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"If you don't wanna get married, all you have to do is say it! I'm so sick of having this conversation with you, Alex! Then when I call you out on it you act like there's nothing wrong! It's always something with you! First you didn't wanna get married last month because it was my birthday month, then you didn't want to get married THIS month because it's so humid and rainy in July, so to appease you, I pushed it all the way until fucking OCTOBER and you're STILL complaining! I'm so tired of trying to make this work with you!"

I finish emptying the dishwasher so she can put the dirty dishes from dinner tonight inside them. "Cut me some friggin' slack here, Iz! I never said I didn't want to get married I just suggested that MAYBE we should push it back to the beginning of November because I DON'T THINK that we're ready! We still have so much shit to do to get ready and I don't think three months is enough time for everything that you're trying to do!"

"Right, because it's ALL my fault. It's my fault for wanting my wedding to be nice. It's my fault for wanting to get married the RIGHT way. SCREW THE FACT THAT I TOLD YOU WE COULD GO DOWN TO CITY HALL LIKE YOU WANTED!"

"Are you done putting words in my mouth?! Because right now, you're making it seem like THE ONLY REASON we've been waiting was because of my so –called "uncertainty." We're gonna nix the fact that we put it off last month because it was your birthday month AND because your best friend or lover or whatever George was to you DIED. We're just gonna act like you were never in love with George and you were never devastated that he died…aren't we? What kind of MAN would I have been if I let you marry me when your old flame just DIED?"

"It always comes back to George…always." She slams a dirty plate down on the counter and stomps over to the fridge. "Just admit it Alex… Admit it that you were always jealous of the relationship I had with him."

"…Jealous? No, Iz…let's rewind and remember that I PROPOSED TO YOU LIKE AN IDIOT and you told me NO because of HIM. And now all of a sudden since he died, you're all gung-ho and all for marrying me? How do I know this is what you really want? How do I know that you're not marrying me just because he's not here?"

"So it's a trust issue now? You don't trust that I love you?"

"How could I when you never show it?"

"I NEVER SHOW IT?! YOU'RE THE ONE THAT TREATS ME BAD!"

"….Go to hell, Iz. Really, go to hell." I kick the refrigerator door shut and walk towards the exit of the kitchen. "I've done nothing but treat you good. I stayed through it all and you have the nerve to say I treat you bad? You don't appreciate ANYTHING these days. I did everything for you and you still pulled that shit when George died and you left me…remember that? You went back to Chehalis and I didn't hear from you for three weeks. Then you just showed back up here and said 'sorry'. No explanation, no reason why…just 'sorry.' You don't act like you love me, Iz… so excuse me if I'm a little leery about getting married so soon. I don't think I can deal with losing you anymore. You got sick and I lost you two different times…then you got better and you left me and I lost you AGAIN. I can't lose you again…"

"…Goodnight Alex."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Well how was your date? Anything to report?" Steph asks. She's sitting on my butt while she's playing with my hair—literally. I'm lying on my stomach on her bed watching Saw II and she's sitting on my butt playing with my hair. I think she's putting some kind of braid into it but I'm not sure. I know that she better not pull it real tight because I HATE when my hair gets pulled. I seriously might square up and fight you if you pull my hair all hard and shit. I get so mad when someone pulls my hair. "And are you sleeping in here with me?" She asks that because the last time we stayed up late when we were off the next day, we watched The Blair Witch Project and the both of us were too scared shitless to sleep alone. Saw isn't as bad as The Blair Witch Project but still.

"Yeah, I guess I'll sleep in here." I mumble and grab the remote. I'm getting bored with this movie. "And it was okay. He moved way too fast but I guess maybe I'm just looking too much into it. I was expecting this to just be a simple date and whatever but he ended up asking me to be his girlfriend and we kissed, which I thought that was a little much for a first date but maybe not… I dunno. It was good. He's really nice so that's a plus." I turn on MTV because Jackass 2.0 is on.

"I don't think kissing is too much for a first date." She lets my hair go and runs her fingers through it. I could fall asleep to her playing with my hair. "At least you didn't screw him. You could've gone back to his place and slept with him on the first date and then I would've been forced to slut-shame you….because that's a slut move."

"Stephanie." I turn my head as much as I can to look at her. "If I had drunk all of my drink, I think I might've. I was so concerned with that because I KNOW if I was drunk with him I would've had sex with that man tonight and I would've been so ashamed of myself. I get so horny when I'm drunk and I'm already horny every single day as it is… tonight had so much potential to be HORRIBLE for me."

"I'm telling you…we're gonna get you a vibrator." She grabs a big chunk of my hair and tugs it up into a bun. "Why are you not getting laid? What's your problem? Do you have a phobia of penises or something?"

"DEFINITELY NOT." I put my head down and laugh so hard into her quilt that I slobber and drool a little bit. "I haven't had sex since…" I close my eyes so I can think. "What is it, it's July isn't it?" I open my eyes back up. "I haven't had sex since April…and that was the biggest mistake of my life but it happened and…whatever. It was good and I haven't had sex since April."

"Why was it such a mistake?"

"Because it was with my microbiology professor."

"JO!"

"I knooooow…." My cheeks flush bright red just thinking about it. "But he was hot and he was hitting on me for the entire semester. And I had just gotten word that they were gonna let me into the program here so I already knew I was moving to Seattle so I was just like fuck it… it was in his car and it was so uncomfortable but it was so good Steph…." I bite my lip. "He kept hinting at it. He would look at me when I was in his lab for the day doing my bio rotation and I wasn't stupid, Steph… I could see the bulge in his pants. And he was so hot…"

"So you like older guys?"

"That's all I mess with. I don't like young guys… they just can't do anything for me. They gotta be at least a year older..." I shrug my shoulders. "I've never done anything with guys that were younger than me so I don't know…"

"See, I'm the same way." She gets off me and lies down right beside me. "I had sex last month with my college boyfriend and he's two years older than me so I kind of get what you mean by that."

"You never told me you had a boyfriend…."

"I don't. We're not boyfriend and girlfriend. We broke up last year but we still have sex. I'm the kind of girl that likes to stick with one boy so until I find someone here in Seattle to be in a committed relationship with, I'm going to be screwing him. That's just how I am. I'm 28 years old and I only have four bodies. The guy I lost my virginity to, my first serious boyfriend, my college boyfriend and this one guy that was in my biochem class. He was sexy and he had a big…yeah, so I just… yanno."

"You make it sound like you lost yours when you were young." I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. Don't get me wrong, I love sex just as much as the next person…but I'm not exactly too proud of all of my sexual encounters. The one with my professor is one that I'd like to take back. I don't know, I've made a whole lot of mistakes in my life…and I sleep with inappropriate men a whole lot. Sometimes I let my hormones get the best of me and I have sex with people and immediately I regret it. "How old _were _you when you lost your virginity?"

"Fifteen." She puts her head on my shoulder and looks up at the ceiling with me. "He was a junior and he took me to prom…because at my school, freshmen and sophomores couldn't go to prom unless a junior or senior took them…so he took me to prom and we went to the after prom party at this senior's house and we had sex in the bathroom. It sucked, but everybody's first time sucks, right?"

"Yeah."

"How many bodies do you have, Jo?"

"Too many." I sigh, ashamed to even admit how many I have as opposed to her four. It's only a couple more than hers but I'm still ashamed of every last one of them except for my boyfriend I had back when I went to Princeton. I still think he should be the ONLY person I've ever had sex with. "I have six."

"That's not bad… why'd you say it like it's bad? You're 28…six bodies is not bad for 28."

"Yeah, but I regret most of them….and a few of them should've never happened. Like Professor Gaines? That had no business happening. I had no business sleeping with a 36 year old married man when I was 27…. That shouldn't have happened. I cried so hard after I did that…you don't understand, Steph. I was so upset with myself and… I don't know, I was kinda stupid about it, too. Because I thought I really meant something to him but nope. He fucked me in the backseat of his car then rode me back to my dorm because he had to go pick up his wife from work. I got back to my dorm and cried myself to sleep."

"…That's kind of excusable, though. In my psychology class, we went over something about how girls—and boys, but mostly girls—that grow up not feeling loved tend to look for love in the wrong ways… so maybe that's what that is."

"Or maybe I'm just a stupid slut that needs to learn to keep her legs closed. I'm so embarrassed that I had sex with a married man… and please don't ever repeat this. Everything that's said here, never repeat… please. Like… I'm really trusting you. I don't open up to everybody…"

"You don't have to tell me not to tell anyone, Jo. I'll never say anything about your personal life. Best friends don't do that." She pats my cheek with her hand. "It's not like you're some big whore. You're 28 with six bodies…that's good. And I'm not judging you…. unless you say some shit about liking to be tied to the bed and whipped… you seem like you'd be into that kinky shit." She busts out into gut-busting laughter.

I laugh right along with her. "…I don't mind if my arms are tied down or if my legs are tied down." I keep laughing. "….Just don't tie both my arms and my legs down so I can't move. That's not cool…that brings back bad memories…"

"…What?" She stops laughing just as quickly as she started. _Shit…she caught that._ I didn't mean to say that. That seriously slipped out. But maybe it won't hurt… It's been kept in for twelve years and I've never breathed a word to anyone. _How much do I trust Steph? _"Did you just…" Her voice is really soft, like she's dancing around what I just said. "You got raped?"

"…Ehh…. Once or twice." I shrug and make it into a joke. It's not a joke…it's really not. But I think it's easier if I make a joke about it. "…Don't tell anybody." I whisper that last part.

"Oh my god…" She mouths silently but I heard it since she's directly in my ear. "Did you tell anyone? I…" She sits up and looks at me. I don't even look her in her eye. I don't want her to pity me because I DON'T need her to pity me. It happened so long ago and I'm so over it. It's not that big of a deal anymore. "I'm sorry…you don't have to talk about it…but… I just… I didn't know, Jo…I'm so sorry." I shrug my shoulders again and hold my hands up to the overhead light that's on inside the room. I open and close my fingers and look at how long my nails have gotten. I feel like I might cry or throw up. "Is the guy in jail?" She clamps her hand over her mouth. "Sorry again…we don't have to talk about it..."

I shake my head. At least I don't think he's in jail. I'm not sure if he actually made a habit out of raping little girls is what I mean. I'm positive that he didn't go to jail for what he did to me because aside from me and him, Stephanie is the only person that even knows. But who knows if he did it to another girl? Maybe he got jail time for that one. I put my hands down away from the light and very discreetly, I brush away a tear that trickled out of my eye. Steph's still looking at me. …Maybe it won't hurt to talk about it. "…People don't just get kicked out of foster homes for no reason, Steph… there gotta be a reason."

"…And that was the reason?"

"…One of the reasons. Mainly the reason I started living in my car." I sit up and run my hand through my hair. I need a haircut so badly. "I mean I didn't really get kicked out of that one but…" I lick my lips. _Let me just make this quick. _"I got kicked out of like ten different foster homes. I got kicked out of one because I beat the shit out of the son because he put glue in my hair… and then it was difficult to place me because I was considered a violent kid. But anyway… that one was my eleventh and it was the best one I'd ever been in. The um… the wife—my foster mother, she really liked me. She would like…buy me clothes and take me to get my nails done and stuff…she taught me how to drive and she gave me the car. Her husband liked me too…but he liked me WAY too much…"

Since I'm wearing shorts, I can see one of the scars that got put on my leg from the one kid I beat the crap out of for putting glue in my hair. He tried to fight back but it just ended up with him having to go to the hospital. "She was at work one day and it was summertime so I wasn't in school and he started talking to me and the conversation escalated to him asking me if I was virgin and I told him I was…because I was. I was sixteen but I hadn't had sex yet. He was huge, too. A real big, burly, lumberjack looking guy…so I couldn't get him off but I did scream the entire time." I swallow a lump in my throat. "Sucky way to lose your virginity, I think." I shrug. "But I'm fine now…I just don't like to be grabbed in certain ways, you know? It does things to me…"

"…I'm so sorry." She gives me the tightest hug I've ever had in my life. "But you're like… you're so happy and cheery and… I mean… you don't seem like…"

"What's there to be sad about? If I mope around about something that happened to me when I was sixteen, what would the point be? Moping around and being sad about it isn't gonna make him un-rape me and it's definitely not gonna get my virginity back…that's exactly why I ran away. I wasn't just gonna let him do it again so I ran away and I started living in my car." I shrug my shoulders again. "Oh well… shit happens and I can't change it. I know for damn sure that I'm not getting raped again…but it happened once and that's that."

"I love you, Jo…okay? You're my best freaking friend and if you ever need somebody to talk to about any of that shit…I got you. I'm right here, always. Got that?"

"I love you too Steph." I look at the clock on the cablebox. "It's late, now let's go to bed."


	8. Common Sense and Good Judgment

**A/N: **Little bit of **M** rated stuff in this chapter, but nothing to change the rating over just yet.

* * *

><p>"Iz… Iz, wake up." I place my hands on the small of her back and shake her very softly. I'm not still angry about our fight last night but she probably is. Iz takes longer to get over things than I do. I bend my knees and lean down to kiss her cheek. I move a couple pieces of her soft blonde locks away from her ear and whisper in it. "Wake up… I made food." Even if I was still mad at her, I couldn't stay mad at her if I tried. She has to take her medicine before we go to work for the day and if she takes her pills on an empty stomach she'll end up being sick for the rest of the day. I don't mind taking care of Iz. I love her to death and I still don't want to lose her so even though we fought, I'll still take care of her. "Come on Iz… your food's gonna get cold."<p>

"Okay… I'm awake." She peels her head off her pillow and yawns. She sits up, fixes her hair and looks at me. "I'm going into work for a half day." She doesn't even look at me. She gets out of the bed and scurries around the room to find her bathrobe. And that's how I know she's still reeling from the argument last night. She won't even look at me and she's being short with me as well. Whatever, I don't care if she's mad at me as long as she eats and takes her medicine. "And when I leave work today, I'm going back to Chehalis for a couple days."

I roll my eyes at her. "Of course you are." I mumble, taking a step out of the room to go take a shower and get dressed for work. Almost every time we get into an argument or end up fighting, she leaves and goes back to Chehalis. She claims it's because she needs a "break" from me but I don't even know if I buy that anymore. That's why I'm so reluctant and hesitant to even argue with her half of the time because I don't want her to go. When she goes back home, she stays there for a while. She says that it'll only be for two days but I bet she'll be there longer.

"I need a break from you." She muses and I mouth right along to every word she's saying because the speech is always, always, always the same no matter how severe the argument. "If we're going to make this work Alex, we need to realize when we need time apart when we're sick of each other so that we appreciate one another when we're together. And right now, I'm just not sure if I can handle you."

"Absence makes _your _heart grow fonder, Izzie. Not mine." I press my fingers into the corners of my eyes and rub the bridge of my nose. See, this is why I'm so torn up about whether or not I should marry her. To everyone, we fake and act like our relationship is perfect but in reality, I think I'm drowning. It's so stressful to love someone as much as I love her but be so sick of her and her shit all at the same time. Sometimes I think she's just getting back at me for how I treated her in the beginning. Granted, we were nothing more than boyfriend and girlfriend back then, but still. I did cheat on her once. I did have a bunch of girls in my corner too. But that all changed as soon as I got serious about her. I haven't cheated on her since and I've been 100% committed to her. I don't deserve payback for something that happened back when we were young.

"Whatever. I don't want to argue with you anymore so please just shut your mouth and I'll shut mine." She secures her robe around her body and walks right out the door, right past me. "I never made you stay, Alex. I never made you stay." She stops walking and looks directly at me. "And I thank you for staying and not giving up on me. That doesn't do anything but make me love you more because you stayed. But I never made you. I never held a gun to your head and made you stay with me and I'm still not twisting your arm to stay. You can leave anytime you want."

"I'm not leaving, Iz. I'm not. There's nothing you can say or do that'll make me leave because despite everything, I love you. You don't give up on someone you love." I run my hands through my hair and sigh. "Just make sure you eat before you take your medicine, alright? And come find me before you leave for Chehalis."

"Alright then. I'll be back on Wednesday."

**X X X**

Because I didn't eat at home, I'm stuck sitting in the residents' lounge eating nasty dry Lucky Charms I stole from the breakfast cart that brings the patients their breakfast. "And she thinks it's okay to just up and leave. I don't get her logic." It's not like I didn't make enough breakfast this morning to eat what I made for Iz, I just wanted to get the hell out of the house as quickly as possible. I pop a little green marshmallow in my mouth and suck on it. "But I don't want to say anything to her about it because you know… I get that she's going through it. I get that ever since the cancer came up she wants to spend more time at home. But come ON. She can't just keep leaving me like this…can she?"

"I'll tell you one thing…" Mere digs her fingers into the plastic bowl that my cereal is in and eats a pink heart-shaped marshmallow. "Sitting here crying to me about it isn't gonna change the fact that she's going to Chehalis. You've gotta stop making so many excuses for her. Okay, she's dealing with cancer and that's really sad but she's also in a relationship…and relationships aren't as half-assed as she's making it. Where are your balls, Alex? Stand up for yourself."

"I'm afraid to." I eat some of the plain parts of the cereal. "Because I know that sticking up for what I believe is right isn't gonna do a damn thing but end up in an argument and every time we argue, she leaves! Nothing makes her happy, Mere. And I've been trying so hard to make sure she's happy and comfortable…what about me, though? She never even asks or attempts to make sure I'm happy. And I know she's not doing it on purpose just to be a bitch because that's NOT Izzie. She's really just oblivious to the fact that I'm drowning here."

"I don't know what to tell you." She takes a handful of my cereal and eats one piece at a time. "If you can't stick up for yourself out of fear that she might leave you…I can't help you. It's a tough situation you're in." When she decides that she's over the whole eat-one-piece-at-a-time thing, she shoves the remaining cereal in the handful she took in her mouth and starts talking with her mouthful. "How….about…." A piece of cereal flies out of her mouth and I tune my nose up. I swat the chewed up, spit-soaked cereal off the table with the back of my hand. She swallows her cereal hard and wipes her mouth off. "How about the sex? Any luck with that?"

"Nope." I slide the empty bowl across the table and lean back in my chair. "It's been two months. It was two months yesterday, to be exact. I'm trying to be understanding with that too, Mere. I'm trying to understand that the medicine she takes right before bed makes her feel nauseous. I'm trying to understand that her sex drive isn't what it used to be….hell, mine isn't even what it used to be either." Just as I finish my sentence, Cristina comes inside the room and sits down without a word right across from me. I just keep talking to Mere though. "…You remember how you made sure that we froze her eggs when she first got sick?" Because she has a mouthful of orange juice, she nods. "We both decided that we wanted to try for a baby the all-natural way before we resort to going all scientific with it. But how are we supposed to have a baby if she won't let me touch her?"

"Oh, you guys are still hoping to have kids someday?" Cristina picks up the empty cereal bowl, looks inside it and tosses it back to the side when she sees that it's empty.

"Well…yeah." I'm not exactly sure if Cristina's the one I should be confiding in about my desire to be a parent someday. Cristina doesn't want kids, she never has wanted kids and she probably will NEVER want kids…and that's not even a secret. "Look at everybody around us. Mere's got a kid, Torres and Robbins have a kid…even Kepner and Avery got one coming. I think it's time. But I don't think it'll ever happen if I keep messing around with Iz."

"So dump her. Leave her at the altar…. Have your mother come into town, shave her eyebrows off, then leave her at the altar. That's the least painful way to do it." She shrugs her shoulders. And that right there is a prime example of why I don't take relationship advice from the great Cristina Yang.

"That's probably the WORST way you could do it." Mere waves her hand at Cristina as if she's a gnat that needs swatted away. "If you're really dead set on being with Izzie though, maybe you should talk to her about how you're feeling. Talk to her about how you don't like it when she leaves and for the love of GOD, Alex…talk to her about the sex issue. If you don't do anything else, make sure you talk to her about the sex. Sex deprivation in males can lead to death."

"…Yeah, I liked you better when you were dark and twisty…before you got married and became domestic." I pinch the bridge of my nose and blow out a huff of air.

Cristina reaches over and grabs ahold of my hand. "If you're still sex deprived by next week, I'm giving you full permission to bang the intern." How did I know that Jo was going to make her way into this conversation somehow? I was kind of hoping that I could get out of this conversation without even mentioning her. "Even though you are the spawn of Satan, I still wouldn't want you to kill over and die all because you weren't getting the cookie."

"Wait, there's an intern?" Mere's positioning in her chair completely changes so that she's in my face to the point where it's impossible to ignore her. "Which one is it? Come on, you told Cristina and not me?! I miss one day of work because my kid is sick and I fall this far behind?! Which one is she? Is she that big blonde one with the long legs?" I just keep my mouth shut. I'm not talking about Jo today…nope. "Oh Alex…you can do so much better than that. She's pretty and all, but come on….you can do better than that."

"No, she's not the one." Cristina speaks up. I glare at her and shake my head. So she's just gonna MAKE me talk about Jo today. "It's the hairy one. I can't for the life of me remember the girl's name, but she's hairy. She's… she's shorter than the blonde one but she has long legs too. She's leggy as hell and she has a bunch of hair…. The brunette one, Mere. You know who I'm talking about… real preppy and annoying…. She's tan…" I can tell by the motions she's making with her hands that she's actually trying to scrounge up Jo's name in her memory. "Winslow…"

"Wilson." I mumble.

"OH!" Mere nods her head in approval. "She's pretty cute. I thought you were into blondes that's why I immediately thought of the two blondies…but she's pretty. But don't cheat on Izzie with her. She's not THAT pretty."

"I'm not gonna cheat on Iz." I toss my pager in my pocket and stand up. "Jo's my friend and Izzie is my fiancé. They're not even on the same playing field. Izzie's on the baseball field and Jo's on the football field. They're not even in the same league." I stretch my arms out and yawn. Not to mention Jo has a boyfriend and even though she and _Izzie _aren't in the same league…Jo's way outta mine. "…I'll see you two later. I'm gonna go round with Robbins."

**X X X **

"Karev, there are no interns today so it's all hands on deck… I need you down in trauma room one STAT." As soon as I get on our floor, Robbins is barking orders at me…which means we're anything but slow today. Put it this way, Robbins hardly ever yells. She's usually one of the coolest, most calm doctors to work with so when she's yelling, I can always tell that she means business. And she's running to the elevator to go downstairs to the ER so that's another indication because once again, Arizona Robbins never runs…especially when she's wearing her Heelys.

I guess we're just nixing rounds for the morning. All the interns are off for the day so it's not like I can just hand my electronic chart to someone like Jo and tell her to finish off rounds while I go tend to the trauma that Robbins is referring to. I slip the electronic chart into the charging station and make my way to the stairs. I'll take the stairs as opposed to the elevator because it sounds like Robbins needs me quickly and it'll take too long if I wait for another elevator to come back up. I hold onto the railing and pace myself as I run down the steps. When I get to the ground floor, I walk quickly over to the first trauma room. Nobody but April and Dr. Hunt is in here. "Kepner, have you seen Robbins? She said we had a trauma in this room, but…"

"We sent her over to room two…this one's booked." Hunt points to the room next door with bloody hands. It looks like he and Kepner are pulling glass out of a man. Sometimes I wish I had gone into trauma as my specialty. Kepner gets to see all the gory stuff. I'd like to pull glass out of a guy's face. I turn around and leave out of the room and go next door.

As soon as I get inside the room, I see what all the commotion was for. There's a little girl lying on the trauma bed with a face so bloody that I can't even tell what race she is if I don't look at her arms and legs. I work in Pediatrics for Christ's sake—so when I say that this little girl has one of the tiniest bodies I've ever seen on a toddler, please believe that I'm surprised. I see a lot of tiny toddler bodies, but this little girl looks like a nine month old baby. "Alex, I need you to get in here and take over compressions for me. She's coded twice and she's gonna code again if you don't take over immediately while I set up the defibrillator."

"What the hell happened?" I stand over on the bedside and replace Arizona's hands with my own. "How old is this little girl?"

"She's two and a half years old." One of the paramedics that's still in the room bagging the little girl tells me. "The guy in the car said that she was just wandering around in the middle of the street. He swerved to avoid hitting her but the tail end of the car still got her." Once Arizona sets up the machine, I move my hands away from the little girl's chest and take over squeezing the bag to relieve the paramedic. "Her BP tanked in the field…she was unconscious upon arrival."

I look down at the little girl's face while I'm bagging her. "It's okay sweet girl…you're gonna be fine when we're done with you…" From what I can make out of her bloodied face, she looks like she's an adorable little girl. She has chubby cheeks and hair that curls in little ringlets at the ends. "Where the hell are her parents? Were they NOT there at the scene?"

"No parents when we got there… but neighbors say she was being fostered in the house across the street from the sight of the accident. They didn't give a last name but they said something about her first name being Brynn."

"Of course." I mumble, thinking of what Jo said yesterday about little kids getting the short ends of the sticks. Now that I think about it, I think she had a good point. How could this little girl have possibly deserved to be hit by a car all because her foster parents weren't paying attention or didn't give a damn about her? Speaking of Jo… I kind of wish she was here. It'd be nice to see how she feels about this little girl… knowing that she's been in foster homes. Well the good thing is that it doesn't seem like this poor little girl is going anywhere and Jo comes back to work tomorrow.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Yeah, starting tomorrow I work every other day instead of two on, two off." I'm not very hungry because Steph and I ate an entire bag of frozen chicken nuggets and tater tots before I came here with him, but he ordered fried mozzarella cheese sticks and offered me some and I don't want to be rude. So I take the smallest one lying in the basket and dip it inside the cup of marinara sauce. "And I think they're giving us pagers tomorrow so I can be paged to come in during the night." I take a small, mannerly bite of the cheese stick and chew with my lips together. I'm just a little bit uncomfortable. Unlike yesterday, he's not sitting across from me. He's sitting right beside me and I'm a little bit claustrophobic but I won't tell him to move.

"You've been working in Pediatrics a whole lot… you considering that as a specialty?" His arm is around me as well. I don't even think I'd be feeling as nervous as I'm feeling right now if he let me sit on the end. It's just that I'm sitting on the inside of the booth we're at and he's blocking me in. What if I need to run somewhere because something happened? He's blocking me in. "You must be considering it as a specialty because nobody willingly spends that much time with Karev."

"…He's not that bad." I shiver a little bit because A, I'm freezing since I only wore a tank top and they clearly have the air on in here; and B, his fingers are rubbing my bare shoulder blade and that's giving me the chills. It's unusually sunny and humid outside today for Seattle so I took full advantage of the weather and put on a white, see-through lace tank top and a pair of dark blue jeans with white sandals to match. "Once you get past the fact that he's rude when you first meet him…he's actually a lot of fun. He's been nice to me lately."

"It's because he thinks you're hot."

"…No he doesn't." I turn my head and look at him with my eyes squinted. "Alex doesn't even… he doesn't think I'm hot. He's getting married and he's happily in love with his fiancé. Plus, he knows that I have a boyfriend. He really doesn't think I'm hot, he's just my friend. We talk about a lot of stuff."

"If that makes you feel better, then yeah…we'll go with that." He chuckles in that sarcastic way…like he thinks I'm naïve. I wrinkle my eyebrows. He's kind of pissing me off. "Everybody knows that before he decided to settle down with the blonde chick, he was notorious for dating and sleeping with everybody. I'm just saying…don't be surprised if you find out down along the line that the whole 'friends' thing was just a ploy to get in your pants."

"…Enough about Alex." I scoot my glass of water over towards the edge and take a sip of it. He's starting to make me angry with all the negative things he's saying about Alex. It's like he's trying to change my opinion of him based on the things that I didn't know about his past…but I'm not gonna do that. I've never been the kind of person to judge people based off their past mistakes because I'd hate it if somebody did that to me. And I'm sorry, but I know for a FACT that Alex doesn't think of me like that. So rather than get myself all worked up and possibly lose my boyfriend over the fact that I'm going to snap out on him eventually, I change the conversation. "No… I'm not considering Pediatrics as a specialty. I've only been on one other service and that was my very first day. I want to give Trauma, Orthopedics, General and Cardio a chance before I stick with one."

"You can always specialize in OB/GYN." He winks at me. "I have a lot to teach you…if you'd let me."

"…I'm not sure if that was supposed to be dirty or not." I crack a smile and lean my head against his shoulder. Aside from the fact that his cynicism pisses me off from time to time, I really like spending time with him. And I'm honestly very attracted to him because when he's NOT being a sarcastic piece of crap, he's actually funny.

"Take it however you want to take it." He takes his hand away from my shoulder and slides it down to my hip. Like I'm nothing but dead weight to him, he pulls me closer to him with just one tug. Any closer and I'd be sitting on his lap. "I'll let you figure out exactly what I meant by that… and when you decide what I meant, you let me know if you're willing to let me teach you a thing or two."

"I think I need to take a minute to decipher." I stretch my neck up and kiss him on the underside of his jaw.

"You are so…" He puts his hand underneath my chin and lifts my head up. Hungrily, he smashes his lips against mine. I'm still alright with kissing him. I'm fine with that. It's the second date and I promised myself—and Stephanie for that matter—before I left the house, that I wouldn't do anything below the waist on the second date. He stops kissing me for a second. "…You know what, Jo? I'm in love with you…I'm convinced." _WAIT, CHILL. Bro, chill with that "I love you" shit. Cause I DON'T LOVE YOU. This isn't even… what the fuck just happened? _He needs to stop talking, so to shut him up, I kiss him again. How does he already know that he loves me?

Maybe if I… I don't know, maybe I love him too? Maybe I'll feel those sparks when I kiss him, because he can't be this crazy to drop the L word on me this quickly. I put my hand on the back of his head, open my mouth a little wider and push his head further into my face so that the kiss is really deep. _Nope… I'm not feeling anything when I kiss him… no sparks or nothing. Nope. I don't love him. He's crazy. _But he's a really good kisser anyway.

His hands wander away from my hips while he's still tongue-deep inside my mouth. One of his hands curls itself in the lengths of my hair behind my ear while the other hand is on the crotch part of my jeans. To make sure I don't offend him too badly, I continue to kiss him but while I'm kissing him, I reach down and move his hand away from me down there. I said I wouldn't go below the waist and I won't. I pull away from his mouth for a second so I can breathe, but go right back to it. You know that tingly feeling in the pit of your stomach you get when you really want something? I'm getting that feeling and I'm scared that if I don't stop him…I'm going to do something that I don't want to do tonight. And he moves his hand back to the middle of my pants but this time, he moves his hand in a rubbing motion. Unconsciously, my legs part themselves a little bit more…allowing him to get his hand deeper between them.

Even though everything he's doing to me below my waist is clearly underneath the table hidden from the view of everyone in this bar, I still don't feel right doing this in public. I may be an easy slut but I'm not a slut that does shit in public for everyone to see. I can't believe I'm doing this… I promised… _But he said he loves me so maybe that kind of makes up for the fact that it's really only the second date…and he sounded like he meant it when he said he loves me… _I pull away out of the kiss again. "Can we go somewhere more private?" I ask quickly before I start to kiss him again.

"Come on." He grabs my hand and slides out of the booth. I stand up and follow him with my hand inside his to wherever he's leading me. I find myself stumbling while he's pulling me along. _He said he loves me and that's a big deal isn't it? Even though I don't love him he loves me and that's gotta count for something doesn't it? _He drags me by my hand past the dancefloor, past the bar and past a bunch of barstools. The bathroom? Really? _Yep. _He pushes the door open and it smells disgusting in here…probably because of the fact that this is a boys and girls bathroom. I think the bar should really invest in more bathrooms…I know it's a cheap bar but really. One bathroom?

He shuts the door behind us and locks it. The lights are already off in here so I don't bother turning them on. I've never really been too keen on having sex in the light. I'm not ashamed of my body or anything like that I just don't really think it's necessary for lights to be on while you're doing your business. There's light coming in through the cracks of the door from the outside and that's enough light for me.

As if we never even stopped, he resumes kissing me but way harder this time. He pushes me up against the wall and puts his hands underneath my legs where my knees fold. I let him pick me up because…well… I don't know…I guess I want this as much as he seems to. He moves the kissing from my lips down to my neck. I wrap my legs around his waist so he doesn't drop me and close my eyes because even though it's too dark in here for me to make out anything more than the shadows of his body and his body parts, I think I'll feel better if my eyes are closed.

He unbuttons my jeans and I help him take them off so he doesn't have to struggle. I hear my pants fall down on the floor and I kick off my sandals right along with them. While he's still kissing my neck, he takes a minute to take off his own pants. And it just happens so fast after that. My shirt is still on and so is his, so we're not completely naked. My panties are still on and so are his boxers. But he unbuttoned the little hole in the middle of his boxers to allow himself through and he grabs the base of my underwear and pulls them to the side. And he doesn't even say anything. He doesn't ask me if I'm okay, he doesn't ask me if I'm ready, he doesn't even bother to ask me if I really want this. He's not even gentle about it. He goes in rough and so hard that my bottom half smashes against the wall but god… he feels so good. And it's not long before the sounds of my gasps and moans fill up the tiny little bathroom.

**X X X **

She wasn't home when I got home and I'm grateful for that because she would've been able to tell before I even got the chance to tell her. I couldn't even hold it in until I got home. I got right in my car and before I even pulled out of the parking lot of the bar, my face was flooded with tears. I almost had to pull over driving home because I thought I was gonna wreck because I couldn't see because I was crying so hard because ashamed of myself doesn't even begin to explain how I'm feeling.

I shut the front door behind myself and leave it unlocked for Steph. I don't know where she's at but my guess is that she'll be home sooner than later. I kick my sandals off again by the door and walk awkwardly back to the bathroom. I'm walking with my legs apart because between them is sticky and gross and I don't want to feel any more disgusting than I already feel. I turn the nozzle to the shower on to the highest temperature and start to undress my disgusting self. I take my pants off and throw them in the hamper. I take my shirt off and put that in the hamper as well. Call me crazy, but I swear I can still feel everything. I can feel his spit and his tongue rolling all over my neck. The pulsating feeling between my legs is throbbing in time to his thrusts. I throw my underwear and my bra inside the hamper too and step right inside the shower.

I can't even begin to explain why I did that. I knew I was doing all the wrong things but I still did it. I knew I was breaking a promise, I knew I shouldn't have done that and I knew that I wasn't gonna do a damn thing but cry about it when I was done…but I still did it. I swear I'm such an idiot. I turn around and let the shower spray hit my back. And it's not like I was miserable the entire time I did it because I wasn't. I enjoyed every fucking second of it…I even climaxed. But it was so wrong. I don't have any common sense or good judgment because everything told me NOT to but I still did it. And just like with Professor Gaines, I really thought it was going to mean something because he actually SAID that he loved me.

I grab my washcloth and a bar of soap and start washing myself. But as dirty as I'm feeling right now…no amount of showering can take it away. I really am a slut. Steph made me feel so good about myself last night when she said that six bodies for a twenty eight year old was good but I don't feel good about myself anymore. I'm a whore and I know this. For god's sake, I sleep with every guy that ever tells me that they love me or show me ANY amount of attention. Why did I sleep with that man? Why did I do that? In a bathroom? Of a bar? I just showed him how classless I really am. I'm so ashamed of myself and I can't even stop crying long enough to properly wash my hair. I've washed my body but I can't stop crying to wash my fucking hair.

Whatever. I'll wash my hair some other time. I shut off the water and get out of the shower. I wrap my towel around my body and go into my bedroom. I'm supposed to have another date with Jason on Tuesday but I'm so scared that now that I did that, he's gonna think that we can just have sex anytime anywhere. I'm so scared that he thinks I'm a skank now. _He's gonna think that's all I'm good for is lying on my back. _I wipe my face off with my towel and sniff.

"Jo? I'm home. I ran down to the store to grab toothpaste and deodorant." She knocks on my door before she just walks in, which I appreciate. _Steph's gonna be so mad at me…_ And again, just when I thought I was all cried out, another round of tears spill out of my eyes and this time, a moan comes out with the tears. "Are you crying?"

"No. I'll be out in a second." I squeeze the towel against my body and lie back against my bed. I can feel how puffy my eyes are from crying.

"Liar." She opens up my door and just comes inside. "What's wrong?"

"I broke our promise." I say it real casually, just waiting for her reaction. She'd be right to yell at me. Hell, I don't even think I'd hold it against her if she slapped the shit out of me. I need to be slapped. But her jaw is just dropped and her eyes are wide. "Please don't look at me like that, Steph… I know." My jaw starts to tremble. "I'm so ashamed of myself… I can't… I can't do anything right to save my life. I knew it was wrong… I don't even know why I did it. I'm so disgusted with myself. I swear to god I hate myself for it. In the bathroom of the bar, though… really." I reach up and grab my pillow. I put the pillow over my face and sob so hard that my stomach muscles hurt and I have a headache. "He told me he loved me Steph and… he told me he loved me… so I just thought it was okay…because he said that to me and it messed me all up. It messed me up… I'm so mad at myself. Why do I do this to myself? I'm so…"

"What an asshole." She snatches the pillow off my face and sits down next to my head. She pats her lap and I secure my towel against my body and lie on her lap like she motioned for me to. "He's an asshole. He's an ASS. HOLE." She starts running her fingers through my hair. "If he had any respect for you, he wouldn't have even jumped at the chance to do it. And what a fuckin' dick move to do it in the bathroom. If he had ANY respect at all for you, he would've taken you to his fucking HOUSE. He's an asshole. What kind of jackass throws around the big 'I love you' on the second date? He's an asshole, Jo… He's the dirtbag, not you. He had to have planned it out. There's no way he was just gonna tell you that he loved you for the hell of it. He wanted to get in your pants. He's a dirtbag."

"But I let him…" I sniff and stare straight at my college diploma that I framed and put on my dresser. Tears are just trickling out of my eyes here and there. "He gave me a SPECK of attention and I went with it. Why do I do that, Steph? Why do I do that? Why don't I have the common sense and good judgment that everybody else has? I don't want to be a whore…"

"You're not a whore." She wipes my tears away. "He's a dickhead. He told you he loved you, which messed with your already messed-up head… it's okay, Jo. Please stop talking about yourself like that. You're not a whore and you're not disgusting and you have nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody makes bad decisions. He's such a jerk for doing that to you, though. You need to cut him loose. He has no respect for you at all. A real man wouldn't bang a girl in the bathroom. A real man would insist that they do it in a BED…the RIGHT way. Jerk."

"…It's my fault too though. I'm so… I do this all the time."

"It's not your fault. You didn't… you didn't know. He messed with your head." She keeps rubbing my hair.

"…I'm gonna be celerbite for the rest of my life." I wipe my eyes.

She giggles. "You mean celibate."

I nod. "Yeah, that too."


	9. Pull It Together

**A/N: **Okay, so I'm aware that this makes TWO updates in ONE day. I just finished writing this chapter and I was so excited to post it that I couldn't help it lol. So before you read this, MAKE SURE YOU CHECKED OUT CHAPTER EIGHT as well. I'm sorry if the two updates in one day confused you...I'm just so excited for you guys to read this. So uh... **M** rated stuff in this one.

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><p>Last night was rough. Like I said before, I've had my fair share of bad nights but last night took the cake for worst overall night in my life. I'd never willingly admit this to anyone…and I'd deny it if I was ever asked, but I literally spent the entire night lying awake…crying. Izzie is the only girl that has ever made me blubber like a baby the way I did last night. I'm seriously so exhausted because in case you didn't know, crying and sleeping don't mix very well so crying was in and sleeping was out. I hope the day in Peds is slow because I need an hour in a nice, quiet on call room. I need a nap and I'm as serious as a heart attack about that.<p>

I get to spend the first half of the day in the NICU which is actually a good thing since no new babies have been admitted since yesterday. Since there are no new cases in the NICU, I might just let Jo round on them herself because I'm sure she can handle it at this point. I'm not sure if that counts as favoritism but if it does, I don't really care. Mere and I were talking when we both came in this morning and apparently Hunt's been talking to Cristina about my "blatant favoritism towards Dr. Wilson." She said that he said if I don't stop treating her like she's superior to all other interns she'll be banned from Peds for a month. I wouldn't want to punish Jo for something that I'm doing. If I'm favoring her I haven't really noticed but I guess I'll try to stop because that would be unfair to her to be punished for my transgressions.

Speaking of Jo… she should've been up here already. I didn't go down to the locker rooms to get her because she got her pager today and that means I don't have to go get her anymore. I paged her up here, but maybe she didn't get it…or maybe she hasn't figured out how to answer it. She's late.

I grab an electronic chart off the charging dock and head towards the elevator. I'll excuse the fact that she's late for rounds today. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and just say that maybe she's unaware of how to use the pager yet. I push the button to call the elevator to my floor and stand in front of it, waiting. I'm also not looking forward to tonight either. If sleeping without Izzie was impossible last night, I imagine that tonight will be the exact same thing. I just have to deal until Wednesday without her then maybe I'll be able to get some sleep once she's back in bed with me.

The elevator doors open and out walks a group of nurses and standing in the back behind all of them, clutching two manila lab folders to her chest is Jo. She looks like she's had a rough day already and I know that she's only just gotten here half an hour ago at the most. I step aside and wait for her to get off. Rubbing her left eye with an opened hand, she walks off and stops right where I'm standing. "I'm so sorry I'm late for rounds Alex… I…I got your page but then Dr. Robbins paged me and I wasn't real sure whose page I should've answered first…I'm sorry. But uh… here's the labs you said you wanted…" Her voice is really dry and raspy.

"What's wrong with you?" I grab the labs out of her hands and start walking in the direction of the NICU. I don't know much about her but if I didn't know any better, I'd say that she sounds like she needs to cry. She either needs to cry, she's been or crying or she just stopped crying. "Wilson, you look like crap. Go back to the locker room and get yourself together." _Don't do that. Remember what Mere said. _Mere cautioned me to tone down on the favoritism before he bans me from working with her. But it's not favoritism it's just me being a nice guy I think. "Do you need a minute?"

"No, I'm fine." She rubs her eyes so hard that I wouldn't be surprised if they popped out of her head. "I just had a really bad night. I'm really sorry for letting it affect my work, but I'm fine." She pushes her hair back out of her face as if she's really annoyed by it. "Where are we at first?" I can tell that she's trying really hard to sound cheerful and I appreciate the effort because I know how hard it is to put aside your personal issues so you can sound happy and cheerful for the kids you're about to work with.

"NICU." I stop at the doors to the NICU before I go inside so I can talk to her for a second. "It looks like it's going to be a slow day in Peds today so once we're done with rounds, if there's nothing else for us to do, you can go find an empty on call room and rest up. I had a rough night too so I know where you're coming from." She doesn't even say anything back to me. She nods her head and stifles a big, wide yawn. I open the doors to the NICU and she follows closely behind me. Since we were late for rounds, Robbins already rounded on the babies in the north and south wings. Jo and I have to round on the ones in the east and west wings.

I go over to our first baby and open up the incubator. As if she's been doing this in her sleep, Jo reaches inside the incubator and unhooks the baby's IV so we can hang a fresh bag of fluid. I just stand back and watch her. She grabs a fresh bag of fluid and hands it on top of the line. She grabs the end of the tube and pushes it into the smaller side. She screws on the top and shakes it to make sure it's on secure enough that it won't fall out. "…What did you do wrong? Your technique was flawless, but what did you do wrong here?"

"…I…" She properly disposes of the old fluid bag and looks up at the new bag she hung. "…I don't know. I… I detached the old bag, attached the new one, checked it to make sure it wouldn't fall just like you taught me how to…" She looks up at me. "Did I do something wrong?"

"…You forgot a glove, that's all. Can't deal with needles without gloves…you know that though." I help her clean up and re-sterilize the area. "You get an A minus for the day. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that if you had a good night's rest, you would've gotten an A plus." I wink at her to let her know I'm joking and though she's visibly tired, she gives me a smile to let me know she took it all in good fun. "Why'd you have a bad night? Just couldn't sleep?"

"…You first." She closes the incubator back up and moves along with me to the next patient. "You said you had a bad night too, didn't you?" I nod my head, looking down inside the incubator. "Well, why'd you have your bad night? You tell me and I'll tell you." Before she opens up the incubator, she leans against it and looks at me. I really need an excuse to touch her because I'm starting to doubt that she's even real again. "Oh and when I tell you, you don't have to act like you care. We don't… we don't have to act like we actually care about each other outside of work. I get that you're not really that kind of friend to me."

"Who said I didn't care about you outside of this hospital?" I unhinge the locks on the side of the incubator and prepare to open it up. She takes my hint and stops leaning against it. "Is this just a fancy way of you telling me that you don't want to be my friend outside of work? Because if it is, it sucks. You could've let me down easier than that. Harsh, Wilson. Harsh."

She laughs briefly before she starts talking again. "No Alex… I was just saying." Her laugh matches her perfectly. She sounds like a cartoon character when she laughs—very animated and cheeky. "I could totally understand if you don't want to be friends with a nothing little intern, especially when we haven't a thing in common with one another. I wouldn't be offended if you admitted that we're work friends because I guess that's better than not being friends at all." When she's looking at me, she has a permanent smile on her face. It never fades away. "You're not exactly gonna call me up and ask me to come over and drink a beer and watch the Seahawks game. So there's no obligation for you to care about my shitty night."

"I wouldn't ask about it if I didn't care, Jo." I open up the incubator and start changing the IV this time. "And you never know." I shrug my shoulders. "Maybe when you move up in the world and become a nothing little resident instead of a nothing little intern, I will invite you over for a beer. We have more in common than you think."

"Oh, that sounds promising." She rolls her eyes at me and even that is the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Everything that this girl does is effortlessly flawless. She blinks her eyes and it's like the world stops to admire the way her eyelashes flutter when she blinks. Everything she does is just perfect. "What do you and I possibly have in common? Unless you're…you know…hiding the fact that you went to Princeton as well." She leans against the incubator again once I close it back up and does that thing with her mouth where her jaw switches from side to side.

"You don't think I'm smart enough to have gotten into Princeton or Harvard?" We really do have more in common than she thinks though. If only she knew that talking to her is like talking to myself. I have a feeling that she'll feel differently once I tell her about the shitty upbringing I had as well. She'd probably be surprised to know that about me. "Actually, I—"

She interrupts me but she does it in a way that's hard to find it offensive. She did it politely. "I had a hard time sleeping last night because I spent most of the night crying….because I'm one of those girls where once I start crying I can't really stop…so it was just bad last night. I'm okay now but I'm really tired since I didn't get sleep." She swats her hair out of her face again. "There. That's my story…what's yours?"

"Same as yours, actually." I admit because she seems like she was being brutally honest with me and I think she deserves that same respect. I guess I'll tell her about the fact that I was a foster child as well some other time. "But it was a double whammy with me because I had to sleep alone…that kind of thing. I guess it was just one of those nights for both of us." I properly close up the incubator and lock it up so we can move on in our rounds.

"…Why were you crying?" She's just as nosy as I am because I was half a second away from asking her the same thing. "You just don't strike me as the type of guy that cries a lot… it must've been a pretty bad situation for you to cry…"

"Ehh… you know… fiancé troubles are enough to make any decent man cry." I motion with my hand for her to follow me.

"…Oh. Yeah, I get that."

"How about you? What were you crying for?"

"I…" She starts to smile but it's out of discomfort rather than amusement. Again, I don't know much about her, but the more time I spend with her, the more I learn about her. And if she's as much like me as I think she is, it's easy to tell what reason she's smiling for when she does smile. "I had a…. bad… sexual….encounter last night, okay?" She's embarrassed and that's what I'm collecting from the type of smile she has on her face. Plus her cheeks are rosy and she can't even look me in my eye.

"With the jerk from OB?" _Did I just call him a jerk? Whoops. That slipped out… but whatever. She ought to know that he's a jerk if she doesn't know already. _

"…He's not a jerk." Yeah, the way she said that…I'm not totally buying the fact that she really believes that. It's almost like she's trying to convince herself that he's not a jerk more than she's trying to convince me. "But yeah…." She still can't look me in my eye so she looks away from me.

"Whatever." I mutter. I don't even want to continue this conversation. It's just not something I'm interested in hearing about. The guy's a tool and it only makes sense if he's not good in bed. He must really suck in order to make her cry over it though. _Unless he hurt her, and that's why she was crying. Nope. _I force that thought out of my mind. Regardless, I'm not interested in hearing anything she has to say about whatever went on in bed with him last night. "Come on… we have to finish rounds." On the plus side… I get to spend the whole day with her and the day just started.

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><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Alex…" I shove my hand in the bag of potato chips I'm eating for lunch and take one out so I can eat it. I tried to show him the place outside that Steph, Leah, Heather, Shane and I sit at when we get a free minute. He said it smelled like old rotten nasty fish and that he wasn't sitting out there. So he took me to the tunnels…where he and his buddies sit and chill when they have a free minute. I must admit that the tunnels beat sitting outside smelling all the gross smells from the cafeteria. Sometimes it smells good out there but most of the time it stinks. "What did you mean earlier when you said that we have a lot more in common than I think? Should I be worried?" I shove the chip in my mouth. We both agreed that if we went to on call rooms to sleep during our lunch hours that we both just wouldn't wake up because we're both exhausted so that's why we just came down here instead. He's actually a really good friend. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy but I swear other than Steph, he's my bestie.

"You've spent more than six hours with me today and you're really gonna tell me that throughout our conversations, there's NOTHING that we talked about that made you say 'hey… we have that in common'? I know we talked about a lot of things but I also know that your brain can retain at least 75% of the conversations." He opted to eat a sandwich from the cafeteria as opposed to my bag of Sour Cream and Onion chips. I think it's a turkey sandwich. At least that's what it smells like.

"Well yeah… but when you said it, you kind of sounded like you meant we share more than just a mutual hatred for the Washington Redskins and a love for Green Day in common." I start filing through my brain for something that might've slipped my mind. So far today, I've learned that his birthday is January 5th, he went to Iowa State on a wrestling scholarship, he played football in high school, he likes to go running in the mornings, his favorite band is Green Day, his favorite song at the moment is "Black Widow" but he'd never willingly admit that, and he has a celebrity crush on Iggy Azalea. I've been teasing him by randomly singing bits and pieces of Black Widow all day, by the way.

"I'm pretty familiar with the streets too." He takes another bite of his sandwich and says that like it's not that big of a deal.

"…Don't make fun of me for being a street kid." I softly throw a punch his way. "Just when I think you're done being a douchebag you start up again."

"Only I'm not makin' fun of you."

I wrinkle my eyebrows and look at him. "…Really?" I put my bag of chips down and fold my arms across my chest. "How many foster homes did you get kicked out of before you had to live in your car, Ace?"

"Seventeen… and I didn't really live in my car, I went straight to juvi. You couldn't handle juvi… punk." Is he serious? He was a street kid too? What? But he is wrong about me not being able to handle juvi. I've been to jail… I think I can handle juvi. "Those kids in juvi would chew you up and spit you out."

"Mhm." I roll my eyes. "Well did you ever have to deal with junkies beating on your bedroom windshield? Ever catch yourself praying at that they'd get tired before they put a brick through the window?"

"…Nah." He finishes the last bite of his sandwich. "But that's only 'cause my dad was the junkie and he didn't break windows…he went straight to breaking fingers. You didn't have to watch your crazy mom go after your baby brother with a steak knife."

"…Touché." I put my head against the wall and sigh. "So maybe we do have more in common than I thought." I look over at him. "It's nice to have someone that understands what it's like to be homeless… I try to talk to Steph about it but she doesn't quite understand that I'm not used to… big cozy beds, hot showers whenever I please and food that doesn't come from a trashcan."

"Whoa… speak for yourself, Hobo Jo. I wasn't a garbage-eater like you."

_Should I do this to him? I don't know… should I? I don't know if I want to do this to him right now. Ehh whatever, I'm going for it. _I put my head down and hold my face in my hands. I don't even try to be quiet about it, I just go for the full out wailing. "Mmmm…." My tears are dripping down my arms.

"…Shit… Shit, Jo… Jo don't cry. I'm sorry." He grabs my arm and tries to pull my hands away from my face but I just shake my head and keep crying. "Hey… hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're not… you're not a garbage-eater. I didn't mean that." He keeps trying to comfort me but I'm still wailing so loud that I probably sound like a seven year old. "You called yourself homeless, so I just thought… I thought it was okay. I'm sorry. Which one was it? Was it the Hobo Jo thing or was it the garbage-eater thing? I'm sorry, alright?"

I take my hands away from my face and look at him, smiling. "Look at your face. I got you. I got you. You're so gullible, my god. I got you." I pull my sleeve down and tilt my head so I can wipe my fake tears away. "Oh, I so got you. I got you good."

"…You're faking?"

"Uh huh." I nod and keep wiping my face off until I'm sure that I've gotten every tear. "I got you…"

"You can just cry like that?"

"Tears, baby. I got myself out of a lot of shit like this." I tilt my head back so my nose doesn't run. "Turn on the waterworks and you can get yourself out of almost anything… number one tool of a street kid is tears. It's a gift, really. I can't believe you didn't know." I put the palm of my hand to my nose for extra insurance that it won't run.

"Oh yeah right… That crap would never work for me. That crap would never work on a guy."

"You're wrong." I push my hair out of my face and clear my throat. "A girl crying is one thing, but when a guy cries… that freaks EVERYONE out. Want me to teach you?"

"…You're crazy. You're a frickin' con artist." He's looking at me with a wide smile on his face but he's shaking his head like I just told him the secret to life.

"You want me to teach you or not?" I sit up against the wall and shift my position so that I'm facing him. I cross my legs and look at him. "Seriously come on…I'll teach you. Look at me." He puts his garbage from his lunch behind himself and turns to face me. This gurney that we're sitting on is pretty uncomfortable and it's making my ass hurt but I'll deal with it. "Okay, you just gotta…feel it. Like… think back. What's the nastiest thing someone's ever said to you?"

"…My first girlfriend told me that she was a squirter and that was pretty gross at the time to sixteen year old me…"

I put my head down, hold my stomach and laugh HARD. "Eww my god, that's totally not what I meant by nasty… you weirdo. That's not what I meant." I can't stop laughing. Oh god this is the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. "That is NOT what I meant, Alex…"

"…Oh. Well shit, oops." He laughs too. "You meant nasty as in mean, didn't you?"

"Yeah… that kind of nasty." I shake my head and just stare into his eyes. I've never felt like this before. I've never felt so naturally myself in front of a guy before. I'm bursting out in gut-busting laughter with him and I'm not even trying. I kind of like this feeling… "And I'm glad that you clarified that you were sixteen when she told you that, because most guys consider that a blessing not gross."

"Yeah I totally appreciate that these days." He shakes his head and keeps smiling. "You don't find many girls that can do that. It really is a blessing now that I think about it."

"It's actually a curse." I mumble but I can tell by the look on his face that he caught that. "…New subject." I tuck my hair behind my ear.

"…Why's it a curse?" He puts his hands on his knees and leans forward to get all up in my face like he's purposely, blatantly being nosy.

"I don't want to talk about this with you! This is weird!" I cover my face with my hands and giggle. "You totally weren't even supposed to hear that…"

"Well we're friends, aren't we? Isn't this kind of what friends talk about? I mean… me and Avery talk about this kind of crap all the time but it is kind of weird talking about it with a girl…I'll give you that."

"…Okay, we can be gross for…" I glance up at the clock hanging on the wall. "Five minutes." Because I know that he is EXACTLY like me and he's NOT going to let this subject go, I'm going to have to explain what I meant by "it's a curse" to him. "…It kinda just like…" I put my tongue in my cheek. "It goes everywhere and it's messy." That's the most PG-rated way I can put that.

"I've heard someone say that before." He nods like it's not even in the least bit gross to him. "I actually had a girlfriend in college that would never orgasm because she didn't want to do that because it was messy. I thought she was nuts, but hey…"

"It IS messy though… that's why I do it the other way…because it's less of a hassle to deal with and I don't feel guilty for like… getting it everywhere."

"You can do BOTH?"

"…Yeah? I thought all girls did the clean way and then a select few did it the messy way. I thought… is it not normal to do both?" I can't believe I'm sitting here talking to him about this. I can't believe this… this is so awkward but at the same time, it's so easy. It's easy to talk to him. "I mean I tend to do the other way because doing it the one way is really stressful… and…" I just shake my head.

"….You're a freak, aren't you?" He looks at me through squinted eyes. "You are a fuh-reak."

"…I guess." I shrug my shoulders and giggle. "I just like sex. And I don't feel like it should be okay for a guy to like sex but the second a girl says that she likes to have sex, she's a whore. That's not fair."

"I don't think you're a whore for liking sex." He wipes the palms of his hands on his scrub pants. "I think Chest Peckwell is lucky, that's what I think."

Jason is the LAST thing I want to talk about. I was having such a good time without talking about him. I'm not talking about him…I refuse. "So, five minutes is up…" I move my hair out of my way again. "…Back to teaching you how to cry…" I clap my hands enthusiastically and look at him some more. "So yeah… think about the MEANEST thing someone's ever said to you. You have to feel it… feel it in your… feelings. And think about it."

"I don't have feelings."

"You have feelings, Alex… I've seen them." I reach over and grab ahold of his hand. He flinches away from me like I burned him when I touched him which makes me loosen up a little bit. "When you deal with those little babies… you have feelings." I have feelings too…and they're getting stronger just by sitting here with him. "…Think about when your fiancé kisses you…" My heart drops when I say the word "fiancé." I bite my lip and scoot closer to him. "Think about when she kisses you…and think about when she eases in…" I don't even notice that I'm easing in as I'm coaching him through it until our noses are almost touching. "…Think about that moment just before your lips touch…and how you'd feel if you never felt that again…"

Our faces are so close to one another's that my nose is touching his. I can feel his breath against my upper lip as we're breathing. And I don't know, but my eyes close and so do his.

"KAREV AND WILSON! THERE YOU TWO ARE!" I pull away from him so fast when I hear somebody interrupt the moment. Like I'm going to get caught doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. He pulls away from me with the same urgency and it's not until I see and feel him pulling away from me that I realize his fingers were interlocked inside mine. "WHY AREN'T YOU TWO ANSWERING YOUR PAGERS?!" Dr. Robbins is fuming mad.

I was about to kiss him. I was about to kiss him and I was about to fall into a trance and I was about to die and go to heaven for a minute there. I was about to do the only thing that's ever felt right in my life. It felt so right to kiss him even though I know that I would've made a mistake that would've inevitably lead to me crying about it later by just kissing him. But it felt so right to do… I gotta get off Peds. I have to get off his services. I'm celibate for one and for two, I'm not going to fall for a married or soon-to-be-married man. I'm not gonna allow myself to do that. I'm not setting myself up for that kind of rejection…I can't do that to myself. I have to get off Pediatrics.

"…I'm… I'm gonna go down to the pit and see if anybody needs me down there." I hop down off the gurney quickly before I start to get all mixed up. I can feel the tears coming on and the tears that I'm close to crying aren't fake tears that I use to get myself out of shit. These tears that are forming behind my eyes are real as hell and I don't want him to see them fall. I even leave my half-eaten bag of chips behind as I start lightly jogging down the hall.

"Jo!" I hear him calling after me and even though I'm telling myself not to slow down, my common sense and good judgment problem takes over and I stop running and turn around to look at him. "You don't have to go down to the pit…" He says. I shake my head and turn back around.

Pull it together, Josephine. Pull. It. Together. You're NOT falling for him… you're not allowed. Get your shit together.


	10. Dangerous Feelings

"So, five minutes is up." She pushes her hair out of her face and I watch her shoulders heave as she sighs. Other than Mere, I don't think I've ever clicked this well with a female. Of course I've had lots of lady friends in my lifetime but most of them—if not all of them, have wanted to have sex at some point in time. With Jo, it's different. I've been talking to her about everything and anything today and it feels so natural…like she's just one of the guys. "…Back to teaching you how to cry…" With a toothless smile spread across her thick pink lips, she claps her hands and gazes at me. "So yeah… think about the MEANEST thing someone's ever said to you. You have to feel it… feel it in your… feelings. And think about it."

"I don't have feelings." I look back at her with the same friendly innocence she's looking at me with. The shitty upbringings aren't the only things we have in common, I've found. In fact, the shitty upbringings don't even scratch the surface. It's not like we spent the entire day so far together playing 20 Questions or anything like that. It's just that when we talk, information starts spilling out and more and more so I'm convinced that this girl is the reincarnation of myself from a past life. Within the last five or six hours of being with her, I've gathered that her birthday is May 5th, she's 28, her favorite color is purple, she doesn't watch much TV but when she does, she likes to watch a show called Awkward, Gossip Girl and a show called Girl Code. She doesn't have a favorite movie but if she had to pick one, she said it's a tie between Monsters Inc. and Monsters University but both Forrest Gump and Men In Black come in a close second. And she doesn't have a favorite song but she hates almost everything that plays on the radio.

"You have feelings, Alex… I've seen them." Out of the clear blue, she outstretches her hand and grabs ahold of mine. Incidentally, I flinch away from her when she does that but solely because I wasn't expecting her to do that. I've waited a while to have an excuse to touch her on my own and now she's touching me on her own whim. I think I finally have some closure within my mind that says "Yes Alex, she's real and you know she's real now because you touched her." Her hands are miniature compared to mine. Her fingers are slender and the skin on her palm is so soft and smooth. I glance down at her fingernails, which are neatly trimmed and clean but really long as well. "When you deal with those little babies… you have feelings."

I notice while she's talking, she's moving closer to me but it's probably just because she's sliding off the edge of the gurney we're sitting on. "…Think about when your fiancé kisses you…" And now she's making me think about Iz which completely ruins it for me. She was getting a little too close to me and I would've probably stopped her before things got too serious anyway, but the fact that she just mentioned Iz really just did it for me. I watch her mouth and she bites her lip and inches closer to me again. "Think about when she kisses you…and think about when she eases in…" While she's coaching me through what it's like when I kiss Iz, I notice that she's getting closer and closer. "Think about that moment just before your lips touch…and how you'd feel if you never felt that again…"

Her face is so close to mine that our noses are touching…and for some reason… I don't really have the willpower to pull away from her just yet. I can feel her breath against my lips as we're breathing in tune with each other. Her eyes flutter shut for a brief moment before she unsteadily opens them back up again. Some place in the back of my mind isn't telling me that this is wrong. It feels so right to be in this position with her and as much as I don't want to want this…I can't deny the fact that I wouldn't mind sharing a kiss with her. At the same time, both our heads turn and we both close our eyes.

"KAREV AND WILSON!" She pulls away from me so fast that it's like a fire was lit under her ass and I scoot away as well, smoothing my hands over my pants and acting like nothing just happened. I know Robbins wouldn't tell Izzie that I just got caught almost kissing an intern but it's still the principal of the fact that I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. Plus, I don't think Robbins would care, but I'm pretty sure the whole almost-kissing-Jo thing qualifies as favoritism and Jo might get thrown off Peds for that. "WHY AREN'T YOU TWO ANSWERING YOUR PAGERS?!" I untangle my fingers from hers because we were unconsciously holding hands.

"…I'm… I'm gonna go down to the pit and see if anybody needs me down there." She springs up off the gurney so fast that she leaves her chips behind as well. She nearly runs away from me, shielding her face as if there's something she doesn't want me to see.

"Jo!" I'm confused as to why she's running away from me to get down to the pit. She doesn't have to go to the pit. She can stay on Peds with me and we just don't have to talk about what just happened…or _almost _happened. To be completely and totally honest, I don't even want to talk nor think about what just went down. That would've been a huge mistake and there would've been NO excuse for that if that had happened. As soon as I call her name, she spins around to look at me from the distance she's already at down the hallway, her hair flaring out and becoming messy with her movements. She's a pretty decent distance away from me so I can't be completely sure, but I think she's crying from what I can see. Her eyes are glistening like they're wet. "You don't have to go down to the pit…" I try to convince her to stay with me but she shakes her head and keeps walking away from me.

I don't know whether I should go after her or let her walk away. I'm confused because clearly, walking away is something she wants to do. I didn't tell her she had to get away from me and I sure as hell didn't tell her that she had to get up off the gurney we were just sharing. Since I'm not the one that told her she had to go, I'm guessing that walking way is something she wanted to do herself. So should I go after her and make sure she knows that what just happened is in the past? Or should I let her walk away like she wants?

Despite the fact that the tail end of the conversation we just had was enough to make me want to lie her down on the gurney we were sitting on and take full advantage of the fact that she said she's a sexual person. Despite the fact that I almost kissed her and I know for a fact that if I had kissed her, I probably wouldn't have been able to help myself and I would've AT LEAST gotten some finger action in there or something. Despite all of those things, I have actually developed a friendship with her. In addition to the fact that she's hot, she's actually a really cool friend…and the things we talked about are things that I would talk to Mere, Cristina or even Avery about. So since I realize that I actually enjoyed her company aside from the almost kiss and the conversation that turned me on that we are friends, I get off the gurney and go after her.

"Jo, wait up!" I call after her, pushing past Arizona and trying to slow her down as best as I can. When I call her name, she slows down a little bit but she's still walking pretty fast. "Jo!" _Regardless of the fact that she's a friend to you, she is your subordinate. She can't tell you what she's going to and what she's not going to do. _I stop walking after her dead in my tracks and put my hands on my hips. "WILSON! GET BACK HERE!" My throat hurts from yelling at her but I'm serious. She can't just up and go down to the pit if I didn't tell her to. I think she got the picture through my yelling because she stops jogging immediately. "We still got work to do! I didn't tell you to go to the pit!"

She has her back still turned to me but I can tell by her posture that she's not all the way there. Since I got her to stop walking, I start walking towards her and when I approach her, I swear I can hear her crying. W_hat's she crying for? There's literally no reason for her to be crying. NOTHING happened. _"The Peds floor is this way…. Not that way." I put my hand on her shoulder and she snatches away from me. "Wilson, you've gotta cut it out. Consider this a lesson." I give up on touching her because clearly she doesn't want me to. "You're gonna have crappy days at work but you've gotta brush it off because people are counting on you…you hear me?" She brings her hand up to wipe her tears away I assume but I don't know for sure because I can't see her face. "People are counting on you to fix the problems that other people cannot fix… and if you can't do that all because you're having a little tantrum, then you need to get the hell out of this program."

I hear her sniff and slowly, she turns back to face me. "…So we're just not gonna talk about it?" The skin around her nostrils is pink, probably from her rubbing her nose. Her eyes are red rimmed and her already bright brown eyes are sparkling even more so with the presence of tears. _How is this girl this beautiful no matter what? How is she pretty even when she's crying? I don't get it… _"Is that how we're gonna play it? …We're just not gonna talk about it?" She's REALLY upset and I feel kind of bad. I want to ask her what the reason behind her tears is, but I have a better idea.

"Talk about what?" Now of course I know what she's talking about. I'm not stupid and I know EXACTLY what she's talking about. But I can see just how much this whole thing is tearing her up so if it will stop her from crying and being upset, then no…we won't talk about it. We'll just forget about it. We won't even bring it up.

"Thank you." She whispers and clears her throat. "…So uh… what do we have to do?" And just like that, she pulls herself together.

"We have a few more babies to finish up rounds on because a few more got admitted since this morning and then we have to go check on the older kids… our day in the NICU is almost done. Come on." I motion with her hand to follow me and she does. I won't lie… I kind of wish we could talk about what just happened. I'm obviously still against cheating on my fiancé, but I don't feel like just forgetting about the fact we almost shared a kiss is the right thing to do. I'm over the moon about the fact that I didn't kiss Jo and I honestly don't wish that I would've. I just wish that we could talk about it so it never happens again.

But Jo doesn't want to talk about it and so we won't.

**X X X **

"So what was the deal with you and Wilson in the tunnels?" While I'm busy finishing up her post-op notes, Arizona pops up next to me and sticks her chart back on the charging dock. I knew she was going to ask about it. I knew that it was only a matter of time before she asked about it and to be honest, I'm surprised this didn't come up sooner. "…Because I'm not going to assume that it was what it looked like it was…but if it was what it looked like it was…then what the hell?"

"It wasn't what it looked like it was." I mumble while pretending to be super busy with finishing these notes. "She was bummed out today about something that happened to her last night and she needed a friend, that's all it was. She was bummed because—"

"So you comfort her by kissing her?" She gives me a slap on my arm that's not hard but hard enough to sting a little bit. "What are you doing, idiot? Have you not learned ANYTHING from me? Sleeping with your co—"

"Whoa, wait…" I put down the pen I was using to write the notes and look at her. "I'm not hooking up with Jo. She's my friend and that's all. There's no sleeping with her, there's no feelings for her, there's NOTHING there but friendliness…so butt out."

"I'm just saying that you have a fiancé and you have a life and I get that she's young and she's pretty but—"

"Get out of my business, okay? I HAVE not, WILL not and don't INTEND on sleeping with that girl. You people frickin' kill me around here, always trying to give me guidance. Bull crap, alright? It's all bull. Don't try to guide me on what to avoid with my relationship when you can't even fix your own. She's a good friend and she's a quick learner and she knows what to do with these babies before I even have to TELL her what to do. Stop acting like it's a crime to have a favorite student…I was yours." I close up the book of notes I was just doing and slide it across the counter at her.

"No Alex, you were my favorite student when you decided to specialize in MY specialty. I have no choice BUT to like you because I also have no choice BUT to teach you something! You being my favorite and her being your favorite are two totally different things. You don't have to tell me how good she is because I've seen it myself but how is she supposed to get a well-rounded education here if your tongue is down her throat? What kind of service do you think I'm running here, Karev? I shouldn't hav—"

"You've got the wrong idea! I never—"

"SHUT IT! I'M SPEAKING AND YOU'RE NOT." Like I said earlier, Robbins is PISSED. She never yells like this…so I take her hint and just shut up. "I've already put too much time and effort into grooming you to be just like me for you to just throw it all away on some intern. I'm not going to let you get your head wrapped up in her…I WON'T let it happen." She snatches the book of her post-op notes off the counter and tucks it under her arm. "She's banned from Pediatrics until further notice and that's not my orders, that's Chief Hunt's orders."

"You ran and told the chief?" I throw my hands up. "I never even kissed her. It almost happened but it DIDN'T and we were both fine to work with each other for the rest of the day. You're WAY overreacting with this…" I take a step back and take a deep breath. I'm LIVID right now but if I mouth off to Robbins I know I can kiss a lot of things goodbye. "Fine. I'll go tell Jo that she got banned for something that DIDN'T happen."

"No, you stay away from her. I've already told her. She's on Hunt's service all day tomorrow and that's where she'll stay until the both of us feel that you two are on level grounds with each other."

"…Bullshit." I mumble and walk away. How can they just tell me that I can't work with Jo because we ALMOST kissed? It wasn't even that serious, I'm telling you it wasn't. We DIDN'T kiss and we were FINE for the rest of the day to work together. We didn't talk about it. Instead, we talked about how much we'd like to go see Guns N Roses and Journey in concert back in their glory days. We talked about how she hates Led Zeplin but loves Fleetwood Mac. She teased me a little more for liking that Black Widow song but I had to explain to her that Izzie likes to play the radio while she bakes and she bakes A LOT. She asked me if I had ever heard of John Mayer and I told her no. She told me to go listen to a couple of his albums tonight and let her know how I like him tomorrow and I told her to go listen to Michael Buble. She also told me to go home and rent The Breakfast Club since I've never seen it and that was it. Our entire conversation was friendly after that slip-up…and now she's banned from Peds?

I feel like I owe her an apology, so maybe I'll just go and tell her that I'm sorry that she got banned from Peds. She's probably on her way home for the night because it's 7:30 and her shift was over half an hour ago. She'll probably be in the locker rooms. I stuff my hands in my white coat pockets and stride to the stairs. The locker rooms are only down one flight of steps so it's kind of pointless to take an elevator down there. I'm walking past a conference room when all of a sudden, like it's out of a movie, I hear the bantering of two people going back and forth…and something in my gut tells me to look in. And when I do…of course she and Peckwell are in there.

_Never mind then…She's busy and I'm going back upstairs._

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"I have to hear rumors going around the whole damn hospital that you and Karev are kissing in the tunnels? And then I have to hear you lie about it?" My back is against the wall and he's hovering over my body with both his hands on either side of me. His face is so close to mine that if he moved closer by about a half inch, our noses would be touching. I don't think I like this too much… "I knew something was up with you and him. I KNEW it." He's yelling at me like I'm his daughter and not someone he's in a relationship with. "Whose idea was it to kiss? Huh? Was it yours?"

"No Jason! Damn! How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't even kiss him! We didn't kiss, I swear. I don't know how many times I have to emphasize that point to you…" I'm really confused as to why he's yelling at me so much. Of course I know that he's pissed because he thinks that Alex and I actually kissed today and I get that. He has the right to be pissed because I AM his girlfriend (for lack of a better word) or whatever. I don't think I'd be as pissy as he is with me if I found out that he kissed another girl but Jason clearly feels differently about me. Regardless, I understand that he's angry with me for it and I understand… but where does he think he gets the right to yell at me like I'm not a grown ass woman?

"See, this is why we're never gonna work out. This is exactly why. You're LYING to me, Jo… I heard all about what happened in the tunnels." He moves his hands away from me and starts pacing around the room. "I don't know why you insist on lying to me when I already know the goddamn truth. Just fess up to it. You want to break up, don't you? You have such a fucked up view on relationships that you just want to break up with me. I know you do."

"See, now you're putting words in my mouth." I bawl my hands up into fists and squeeze them. He's REALLY starting to piss me off because he's doing two of my pet peeves. He's accusing me of doing something that I REALLY did not do and he's calling me a liar. I may lie about some things but I'm not lying about this and I can't STAND being called a liar when I'm telling the truth. "I didn't FUCKING kiss him and I never FUCKING said that I wanted to break up! STOP putting words in my mouth! I don't give a shit if you don't believe me but you're NOT gonna keep yelling at me like this and accusing me of doing something that I DIDN'T do. I'm not your goddamn child."

"No, you're NOT my child but you ARE my girlfriend and that means you're mine now…got it?" _Oh come on. Just because I had sex with you one measly time doesn't mean you're entitled to be my freaking keeper. It was just sex. _"Which means I don't want you kissing anybody, I don't want anybody touching you…I don't even want anybody to BREATHE on you because you're MINE. What the hell do you think a commitment means?" _Commitment? We didn't make a commitment! _"Two people in a committed relationship means we're committed to EACH OTHER, Jo. I'm not kissing or having sex with any other women, so why are you sleeping with and kissing other men?!"

"OH MY GOD I'M TELLING YOU THE TRUTH! I never kissed him! We were talking and the talking got personal and that was IT. I'm telling you the TRUTH! I shouldn't have to justify myself to you, you should just trust that I'm telling the truth! You're acting like I made a sacred promise to MARRY you and I'm NOT sleeping with anybody else, let's be clear about that! I haven't slept with any—"

"Don't tell me you're getting ready to lie again." He shakes his head and chuckles which sends a chill of irritation throughout my body. I could punch his fucking teeth down his throat, that's how much that little snicker just irritated me.

"Will you let me fucking talk?! I can't get a word in edgewise with—"

"You don't need to get a word in. You were about to tell me a bold-faced damn lie to my FACE. You were about to tell me that you haven't slept with anybody else other than me which we ALL know is a damn lie. I know a virgin when I see one and I know a slut when I see one…and let's just say you're not the previous."

My jaw involuntarily drops. I can't believe he just called me a slut… "…I wasn't even going to claim to be a virgin before I met you. I wasn't gonna imply that…" I really want to kill him off right now. "I was going to say that I haven't slept with anybody BESIDES you in the last few months, you son of a bitch. But you know…since you have a problem with letting me talk!"

"I'm just saying that a virgin wouldn't let me talk her into fucking in the bathroom, that's all. So just in case you were going to try and—"

"Fuck you." I push my way past him and go to the door so I can leave because I can't be in this room with him any longer. If I remain in this room with him, I WILL end up hurting this man and I don't want to do that. I can't help but start mumbling under my breath as I prepare to go home for the night. "…Getting on my damn nerves accusing me of something I didn't do…" It's fine that he thinks I'm a slut. I seriously DON'T care that he thinks that about me. He's never getting in my pants again and that's that. I don't care if we're still dating a year from now; I'm NEVER sleeping with him again. I'll take Steph up on her offer to buy me a vibrator before I sleep with him again and I mean that.

**X X X **

"Are you in a better mood now?" After nearly ten whole minutes of me sitting in dead silence with the exception of my shitty little iPod playing music, Steph breaks into my room. She's asking because earlier back in the hospital, I snapped on her when she asked me about the rumor going around about me and Alex. I didn't snap on her on purpose, I was just irritated about the fact that I really wanted to kiss him and I didn't and then I was irritated about the fact that I got banned from Pediatrics. She caught me at a bad time. Now I've just gotten out of the shower half an hour ago, I ate some frozen French bread pizza for dinner so I'm not hungry and I've been listening to this new artist that Alex turned me on to, so yeah…I'm in a better mood.

I pause my music and sit up against my bed's headboard. "…Yeah." I tuck my hair behind my ear and cross my legs in preparation for her to sit down so we can talk. "Sorry about earlier…you just caught me at a bad time." I explain.

"Whatcha listenin' to?" She crawls up next to me on my bed and picks one of my headphones out of my ear. She nonchalantly unpauses the music. "Michael Buble… nice."

"Yep."

"So are you ready to talk?" She asks. I shrug my shoulders. "…What's the story about you kissing Karev in the tunnels? I've been hearing lots of shit…"

"I didn't kiss him." I bite my lip. "I wanted to…but I didn't." I slam my head back against the wall and sigh. "…He's so perfect, Steph. I just don't understand…." I realize that I didn't really get all my tears out earlier and I feel them coming back on strong right now. "You know how they always say that everyone in this world has one person that they're just…meant to be with?" I bite my lip. "What if that's him, Steph? Then what? What if he's my person? I've never felt the way I felt today…EVER. I've never felt that way before. And I feel like…he's my best friend but…" I sigh again. I can't really explain my feelings so I just won't. "…Whatever. I don't care." I shake my head. I've had a long day today. "I want to go to bed…"

"…Alright." She stands up off my bed. "But what about Chest Peckwell?"

"I said I'm going to bed, Steph."


	11. Misunderstood

I wonder whose service I'm going to be put on today. It's been three days since I've been kicked off Pediatrics and I've already been on almost everyone in this hospital's service. I was on Trauma with Dr. Kepner and Chief Hunt on the first day of my banning from Peds and it was so fast and demanding that my head spun trying to remember everyone's vitals enough to triage them. I know interns don't specialize, but I know for certain that trauma will NOT be my specialty. I'm not quick enough for it. Also, I was on General with Dr. Bailey two days ago and I absolutely hated it. It was so boring just sitting there and watching her run the same bowel for hours on end trying to find dead tissue. I almost fell asleep twice. Cardio yesterday with Dr. Yang wasn't so bad except for the fact that she just expected way too from me because she was comparing me to Stephanie the whole time. The whole time it was "I don't have to tell Edwards this, she already knows." I wanted so bad to scream at her and say I'M JO WILSON, NOT STEPHANIE EDWARDS. CAN YOU READ MY GODDAMNED NAME TAG?

Speaking of Steph, she woke up with a really bad stomachache this morning so she called in sick. She left me here to fend for myself against Leah, Heather and Shane. She said this morning before I left that today would be good for me to socialize with other people but have I ever mentioned that I suck at making friends? I sit down on the benches in front of the lockers and take off my leather boots. It was pouring down raining when I left the house but as soon as I got here, the sun started shining. Seattle weather is so backwards. Because my boots are wet, I sit them in the empty space beneath my locker so they can dry without getting anything else wet.

While I'm still sitting, I grab the rim of my black long sleeved t-shirt and pull it over my head. I'm not fat or anything but while I'm sitting down, I have a roll. Just one and it's really small and it's not like I have a bunch of rolls that bigger people have. I just have one roll on my gut while I'm sitting down and it was never really there until just recently. Living with Steph has its perks but gaining weight isn't one of them. Sure I love the fact that I can eat whenever I feel like it and I never go to bed hungry, but I've gained like five pounds in the last two weeks. I'm getting pudgy.

Across from my locker, both Leah and Heather start to undress themselves as well. "Hey Jo…" Heather is the first one out of the two to greet me. After Heather speaks, Leah just waves. "Steph running late today?"

"She's not feeling well…she couldn't even get out of bed." I stand up off the bench and adjust the cups of my bra so no parts of my boobs fall out. That happened to me while I was getting dressed in here yesterday to go home for the night. Nobody else saw except for Steph so I was grateful for that but it was still embarrassing. It was so awkward, too. My boob just fell out and I was just like… oh god. Steph got a kick out of it but I was mortified. I move my hair over to the side so it's not tickling the middle of my back until I put it in a ponytail and grab my scrub top out of my locker.

"Ouch…" Leah's voice comes out in something that's crossed between a whisper and a squeal. When I turn around, her eyebrows are crinkled like she's wincing in pain as she outstretches her hand and tilts her head like she's examining something on my body. "Does that hurt?" She softly puts her warm, clammy hand on my back. "It looks like YOU need to be the one home in bed…ouch."

"Oh, that?" I tilt my head back and to the side to look at the spot on my back she's touching the best as I can. Of course I can't see it but I saw it this morning in the mirror when I was brushing my teeth. I woke up this morning and I was hurting pretty bad so I looked at it in the bathroom. It does look pretty bad but it honestly doesn't hurt that bad except for when I stretch. "Nah, it doesn't hurt." I shove my scrub top over my head and pull my hair through the head hole. "…Must've happened last night at Jason's or something…" I grab my pants and shut my locker. On the other hand, I'm glad that Stephanie isn't here today. If she were here, she'd make lying about how I got the humungous bruise on my back really awkward because she knows the truth about how I got it. Steph witnessed how I got it and if she had never witnessed it, I would've probably lied to her about it as well.

"What were you doing on your back?" Heather's voice is full of dry sarcasm. I just wink at her. Good…they're thinking exactly what I want them to think. I mean I really don't care exactly HOW they believe I got the bruise as long as they don't know the whole truth. I'm not really ashamed of the reason behind the bruise I'm just not in the mood to explain or talk about it. And okay, maybe I am a little bit ashamed but not much. "I knew there was a reason you've been in such a good mood." Heather muses as she's dragging a brush through her wispy, shoulder-length blonde hair. "Chest Peckwell's pipe must be pretty good."

…I wouldn't go that far, but if that's what she thinks then so be it. I nod my head to avoid having to speak another lie and take off my jeans. I guess I just don't want them to know because I don't want them to think I'm _that _girl. I don't want them to think that I'm that girl that gets talked about all the time because she stays with a guy that thinks it's cute to push her around. I know it doesn't really matter, but if it's any consolidation, last night was really the first time me and Jason's fight got physical. We've been fighting since four days ago. It started in the conference room when he tried to "confront" me about kissing Alex and it hasn't died down since. He calls me a liar every single day and I got sick of it last night.

He asked me to come over to his house so we could squash all of our issues last night. I didn't feel comfortable with going over his house because then we would be alone and I had a feeling that something horrible was going to happen. So to avoid a fight, I just told him to come to me. I asked Steph if he could come over and she said that it was okay if he did as long as she didn't have to listen to us have sex. I told her that I wasn't having sex with Jason anymore and she agreed again that he could come. So he came over and we started talking like adults. There was no screaming and there wasn't even so much as a name call between the two of us. He told me then that I could tell him the truth about kissing Alex and I told him for the MILLIONTH time that I didn't kiss Alex. He didn't believe me so that's when the screaming started. I told him to get out because I was tired and sick of listening to him bitch at me for one night. I followed him to the door so I could lock it behind him and I called him an asshole. He grabbed me by my arms and slammed me against the wall. I slapped him in his face and he slammed me into the wall again. He told me he'd kill me if I ever put my hands on him again and I pushed him off me and told him that it's over but he _threw _me against the wall again. Then Steph came in and told him to get off me or she was calling the cops and it was over. I told Steph not to call the cops because it was a mutual fight, you know? I slapped him so hard that I broke skin on his cheek and he bruised up my back. She couldn't call the cops on him without calling the cops on me too, right?

I'm still with Jason, by the way. After he threw me against the wall (he literally picked me up off my feet and threw me…I spent the better half of my night cleaning up glass from a shattered picture frame) he felt all bad. Steph tried to kick him out of the house but he insisted on helping me up because honestly at that point, I couldn't breathe. Have you ever been punched in the back? You know that feeling you get where you can't breathe when you get hit in your back? I had that feeling. I couldn't breathe. He tried to help me up but Steph kept screaming at him and telling him to get out but he went all "Jo I'm sorry I love you I'll kill myself if you leave me" on me and started talking about how he was gonna die without me and… I'm already responsible for a lot of things. I don't really want to be responsible for his death too, you know? So I kind of just… told him to stay away from me for a little while. But we aren't broken up I guess. I just have to find a way to do it without making him all psychotic.

My thoughts about what happened last night are beginning to overwhelm me so before I start to cry, I plop back down on the benches and write my name with my index finger on the wood. I know how to turn things on and off really well. When you're a sixteen/seventeen year old little girl and you have to go to school and act like you're not dying for a hot shower, a hot meal and someone to give a shit about you, you learn how to hide your feelings like an expert. I'm practically a professional at acting like nothing's wrong. I deserve an Oscar Award or something. I scribble out my imaginary name with my finger and start writing it over again.

"Good morning." The chief's…chiefly voice interrupts my invisible writing and I look up to see what he wants. I hope he shows me some mercy and puts me on a good service today. I'm kind of under the impression that every doctor in this place dislikes me because I'm the slut intern that got caught (ALMOST) kissing Karev. I'm not even a full month into my internship and I've already gotten kicked off one service and put on punishment. "Murphy you're in Trauma with me and Kepner today so I hope you're on your A-Game. Ross go up to the CCU…Dr. Yang is waiting for you. Brooks, Dr. Shepherd requested your services so you'll be on Neuro. Wilson, you're with Dr. Torres on Orthopedics today. She has a case up on the Pediatric floor, go find her. DON'T MAKE ME REGRET PAIRING YOU WITH HER."

"I won't, sir." I tie my hair up in a ponytail and stand up. I won't even see Alex on the regular Peds floor today. It's Wednesday which means he's in the NICU all day. That's probably why Dr. Hunt put me on Torres' service knowing that she had a pediatric case because he knows that Alex will be in the NICU and not on the actual Peds floor all day. I don't even think me and Alex are friends anymore. If they were trying to dispel our friendship by banning me from Peds, it worked. I haven't spoken to him in what feels like forever. I'm pretty sure that we aren't friends over something so stupid. We didn't even kiss so I'm not sure what I'm being punished for but I know one thing… I'm a little bit sad. He was my friend…and despite the fact that I kind of like him, I like him as my friend as well and I'm pretty sure I just lost my friend.

And that sucks because aside from Steph, he was the only person I didn't mind letting in. And I have so much to tell him. I have to tell him that I hate Michael Buble. I have to ask him if he enjoyed John Mayer and what he thought about The Breakfast Club. I just miss talking to my friend…

What if I promise not to fall in love with him? Would I be allowed back on Pediatrics then?

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

I hope I get some good cases today. I don't hope that kids get sick or anything like that, I just hope I get some really good surgical cases today. I'm in a pleasantly good mood and I attribute that to the fact that Iz came back last night and we did some wedding planning before we went to bed. She got back around 8:30 last night and she had a couple ideas that she gathered from her mom while she was away in Chehalis. I honestly don't think that going away to Chehalis every time we fight is beneficial to our relationship as a whole but I do notice that whenever she comes back, she's always pleasant and really easy to deal with. I'm in a good mood because my baby actually came back and I slept well last night as well.

I didn't want her to come back to work today and hear falsified rumors about the stuff that went on between Jo and me while she was away so after she got out the shower last night, we sat down and watched TV and I told her all about it. I told her about how Jo and I have so much in common and how we're becoming really good friends. I told her that we spent a good chunk of our day on Saturday just talking and bullshitting with each other. I told her that I was thinking that maybe Jo could come to our wedding because she really is like my alternative Meredith/Cristina. She told me that she didn't care if Jo comes to the wedding and she said she wants to meet her because she sounds really great.

The thing I like the most about Iz is that she really trusts me. For the first time in my life, I have somebody that actually, genuinely, truly trusts me. I told her straight up that she might come back to work and hear rumors that I was kissing interns in the tunnels but I swore to her that it wasn't true and she believed me. Just like that. She told me that she trusts that I wouldn't cheat on her because despite the fact that I can be an asshole, I'm a good man.

So while we were off on the subject of inviting Jo, we actually sat down while we were watching America's Got Talent and made a guest list. So far there's 134 people on the guest list so when we went online and custom made the invitations last night, Iz just went ahead and ordered 250 of them. 250 is our limit of people that are going to get actual invitations and if we run out, we can always invite more people by word of mouth. The invitations weren't cheap by any means. I'm talking 250 of them cost me $331.65 plus shipping and handling, so to save on invitations, Izzie's just gonna take one and put it on the bulletin board up in Dermatology as an invite to all of her coworkers. They cost so much because I went ahead and let Izzie go all out with designing them. They're all white with bright red lace trim. The letters of the words are multicolored and they're all hand-written by a calligraphist. The envelopes that went along with them are all white silk with multicolored chrysanthemums embroidered on the front. It made Iz happy so it made me happy as well. The only thing is that we're going to have to hand-deliver them to the people we see every day because I only paid extra to have addresses printed on 50 of the envelopes.

Now that the invitations and the guest list are all done, the next goal is to have a song picked out by the end of the week. You know how at the reception there's usually a song that the bride and groom share their first dance to? We still have yet to pick one out. Iz told me that she wants me to pick the song because she feels like she's not including me in on enough of the planning. I tried to explain to her that I'm NOT good with mushy, love-dovey songs but she insisted so I think I might get my old buddy Jo to help me out with that. Because lord knows that Mere knows nothing about love songs and neither does Cristina. For god's sake, Mere got married on a Post-It! sticky note and Cristina's first wedding ended with her being cut out of a dress and her second one was in a house. Jo has decent taste in music and she's a chick so she knows what a chick would want to have as a wedding song.

Speaking of Jo, I told myself that I was going to give this a week to blow over before I started to talk to her again, but I don't think I can do that. It's been four days since she's been kicked off Peds which means it's been three full days since I've even spoken to her and four days since the almost kiss. I'm missing her company because I like her or anything of that nature. I'm missing her company because aside from Mere, Cristina and Avery, she's the only person in this damn hospital I can talk to. I miss her friendship. So even though it's only been four days and she's STILL banned from Peds, I think I'm going to talk to her today and let her know that I need her help with music.

I don't want her to feel like we're not friends anymore and I want to know exactly how she feels about everything. Plus, since I've gone three full days without speaking to her, I haven't gotten the opportunity to apologize for getting her kicked off Peds. Oh yeah, and I have to let her know that I listened to that artist she suggested and the dude wasn't half bad and she's invited to my wedding. I don't care if I get in trouble for talking to her. She's my friend and I don't think anybody should be able to tell me who I can and cannot be friends with. I wonder if she'd be okay with meeting Iz today.

"Alex!" I turn my head to see who called me and see that it's nobody but Mere. I stop walking out of courtesy and wait for her to catch up. "Did Izzie come back yesterday?" She asks. I was about to go find out what service Jo was on and see if she had a free minute to chat with me, but I guess I'll just talk to her at lunch since I'm being sidetracked by Mere. Maybe Jo and Iz can meet today at lunch. Iz would just have to take a late lunch. Being that Iz works up on Derm, she's on a different schedule than us and her lunch is earlier than ours.

We all used to joke about how easy Dermatology was. In fact, anytime me, Mere, Cristina, George and Iz needed a minute to cool down when we were interns, we would go slum it upstairs in Dermatology because it was so peaceful, calm and easy. I swear Iz is still cut out to be a surgeon. I swear if she really wanted to, she could come down here and kick all of our asses as a surgical resident. But ever since she went to see the dermatologist that diagnosed her cancer and saved her life, she wanted to pursue a career in Dermatology. She's happy up there now and as long as she's happy, I'm happy.

"Yeah…She got back last night." I throw my empty coffee thermos away and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. "We did wedding planning. Guest list and invitations are out of the way, finally."

"That's good. Does she know about Wilson?"

"There's nothing for her to know." I shrug. "She knows that me and Jo are friends and she doesn't care."

"Alright… just making sure."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"You really think you can come up with a way to get the cancer out without cutting off the leg?" I peer over Dr. Torres' shoulder as she's looking at MRI scans. Did I mention how amazing she is? We've been working on Pediatric cases all day and she's so gentle with the kids but forceful enough to deal with bones. She's amazing. So far, there was a ten year old with a broken tibia that she had to set and cast up, a four year old with a shattered ankle bone that she actually let me scrub in on, a thirteen year old with a severed finger that she reattached and now we're looking at a sixteen year old with osteosarcoma. I've literally been buddying around all day with her and I think I like Ortho more than Peds…maybe. My day so far has been… wow.

Not to mention, I don't think that Dr. Robbins completely hates me. Okay so, I didn't know that she and Dr. Torres were married…with a baby. I didn't know that at all. I was surprised when I came to find her on the Peds floor this morning after I was given my assignment. She and Dr. Robbins were busy chatting away about which one of them was going to pick their daughter up from daycare tonight and get this… Dr. Robbins SMILED at me and said hello. Maybe this means I'll be allowed back on Pediatrics someday. But if I'm never allowed back on Peds…I think I'd be okay as long as I can be on Orthopedics.

"That's the goal. I think I can go in and resect this tumor here…" She points to a mass on the screen that I can't see but she can. She's just that amazing. "Take it out and that'll allow me better view of the main tumor… but there's arteries wrapped around—see that?" She points at two blue lines. I nod my head. "So you see, if I take out the little one that'll free up all that space and I can go in and take all that outta there… and a nerve graft would go ahead and allow him to retain use of the limb… you see that? I just can't figure out a plane to dissect on this tumor because all the blood flow is right there…"

"What if you…" I scratch my head and let my voice trail off. I'm not supposed to give suggestions. I learned that in med school. Never tell a doctor how to do his or her job, even if you think you know what to do. Don't speak unless you're spoken to as an intern.

"Go 'head Wilson… what are you suggesting?" She steps aside so I can get better views at the MRI scans. "You have an idea…you should say it. You told me you like Ortho, didn't you?" I feebly nod my head. "Then you need to toughen up and stop being a wimp. If you have an idea that you think might help the patient, SPEAK up. The worst I can tell you is 'no, your idea is stupid'. You have a suggestion?"

"…Yeah, I was gonna say…" I point at the big tumor. "If you use a mid-plane dissection… wouldn't that allow the blood flow to go elsewhere? If you use a mid-plane dissection from the start, you might not have to go in and resect the tiny tumor…you can go in and clean out the bigger one and use other methods to shrink the smaller met… because the smaller met is stuck to the bone, you might not want to cut it off because he might lose function… or…" I bite my lip. "It's a much more aggressive approach, but… the kid's leg is already full of cancer so why not be aggressive right?"

"…I like the way you think, Wilson. I really like the way you think." She bites her lip as she stares at the scans, presumably thinking about what I just said. "I was trying to be minimally evasive… but I think your approach just might work in this case." She shuts off the scans and puts her chart in the pocket of her white coat. "Good work here. Go to lunch and meet me back here at…" She looks down at her watch. "Meet me back here at 1:15 so we can go over your plan again…and make sure you spend some time in the Skills Lab before tomorrow morning because I'm gonna need somebody to dissect the tumor if this works."

"…You're gonna…" _Is she SERIOUS? _"You're gonna let me dissect the plane?"

"Say 'Thank you Dr. Torres, I'm going to go eat lunch now.' Alright?"

"…T…Thank you, Dr. Torres. I'm going to go eat lunch now."

**X X X **

_Smaller cuts, Jo… Smaller… don't… don't. _I put down my plastic scalpel and sigh. I should just tell Dr. Torres to dissect the plane herself. I'm going to screw this up. I'm trying to get nice, even lines and I can't. I've been at this for half an hour and I've only got fifteen more minutes to perfect this before I have to go back to Dr. Torres to finish up for the day. I can always stay after my shift's over to get some extra practice but I have to go home. My shift's over at 7:30 tonight and I have to go to bed early tonight because our surgery is first thing tomorrow morning. I really want to dissect this plane but I also don't want to kill the poor kid all because Torres let a stupid little intern be the one to do the dissections. I have to do the dissection straight down the middle because there are vessels and arteries and nerves all tangled around the tumor and if I go off track even an INCH, this kid loses function of his leg, bleeds out and dies or has to have an amputation…all because I can't dissect in a straight line.

I pick the scalpel back up and try again on the green cup of Jell-O I stole from the cafeteria. I had to get creative, so I stuck a couple toothpicks inside the Jell-O to act like nerves and vessels and arteries. If I puncture a toothpick then I've just killed the kid I'm operating on tomorrow. As soon as I dig the scalpel inside the Jell-O, the door to the Skills Lab opens up. I look up to see who's interrupting me and all of a sudden, my fingers turn to mush and the scalpel falls out of my hand. My shoulders tense up, my stomach gets all fuzzy and warm and I feel like I can't breathe. I might throw up all over this table…but it's a pleasant feeling. I can't move and I feel like there are little fishies swimming around in my tummy.

"Torres said I might find you in here." He strides over to the table I'm at with a bag of barbecue potato chips in tow. "Whatcha doing?" He rests his elbows against the table and leans over it. _Does this mean we're still friends? I haven't talked to you in forever but you came to find me. Are we friends? I missed you… _"And why have you butchered perfectly good Jell-O?"

As if we're picking up where we left off days ago, I crack a smile and giggle. "I'm practicing." I tuck a piece of my bangs behind my ear and keep smiling at him. _Stop smiling like an idiot. _I can't… I always smile when he's around. "Torres is letting me dissect a tumor plane tomorrow morning and I'm failing miserably. I'm going to either kill the kid, paralyze him or make him an amputee if I don't get this right." He turns his bag of chips towards me and I take one. "Is there something you want, while you're sneaking and talking to me?"

"I wanted to talk to you." He shoves a chip in his mouth and chews obnoxiously. "I think the whole punishment thing is over, by the way. So I don't think this qualifies as sneaking if it's not forbidden anymore." He swallows his chip and grins. "So what's been up with you? Mooching any surgeries off anybody with your tears lately?"

I giggle again. "No…" I take another chip out of his bag. "…I didn't know we were still friends." I admit. "I kinda felt like you were avoiding me or maybe you didn't want to talk to me anymore because of what happened…."

"Nah, I've just been busy." He hands me the bag of chips and dusts his hands off on the seat of his scrub pants. "So I checked out The Breakfast Club… it wasn't half bad for an 80s movie."

"So you liked it?"

"I wouldn't say I liked it. I just didn't feel like I completely wasted my time with it. Not something I'd consider my favorite movie, but not something I'd turn off if it came on cable…get it?" I nod my head as my mouth is full of chip. "And I checked out John Mayer. He's not bad either. Took me a while to get into him but once I did, I liked it. I put a couple of his songs on my jogging playlist."

"I hated Michael Buble. I like that 'Haven't Met You Yet' song but other than that…ehh." _We can't keep ignoring the fact that we almost kissed. And I'm pretty sure there's mutual attraction between us. I'm sure he wanted to kiss me just as much as I wanted to kiss him… maybe we should just talk about it. _"So about the—"

He starts to talk at the same time I start to talk so I just let him talk before me. "My fiancé says she wants to meet you." He says that so casually and excitedly. I mouth the word "oh" and look around the room to avoid eye contact. _Awkward… _"I told her all about my little buddy Jo and she's excited to meet you. I told her if she finds me funny then she'd find you hilarious." _You're buddy? Oh… _"And she said you can come to the wedding if you want." _I just don't know what to say... _"I hope you're able to come, dude. I don't have many friends to invite that are just strictly my friends and not Izzie's friends because we're both friends with a lot of the same people…but she's inviting all her friends from up on Derm and now I'm inviting you."

My stomach hurts. I feel like someone just shot a cannon clean through my gut. And my throat is aching with that feeling you get right before you're about to cry. _I've got this all wrong… How could I be so stupid to think that someone like him could want someone like… me? I was kidding myself. _"That's great." I lick my lips. "I would totally love to come… I'll make sure I'm not working that day and I'll just… I'll totally come. I'll bring a gift and all that…" I give him a fake smile. "What… um… color? What color should I wear? I'm so… I'm so excited for you, Alex." _He needs to leave because I need to cry._

"Wear whatever you want, it doesn't matter." He seems really excited for the idea of the wedding. "So you're really gonna come? I know how you feel about weddings and I don't want you to feel obligated to come… but if you do come, that'll mean a lot to me, dude. Even if you just come to the reception to drink and have a good time. It's not for a couple months so you've got time to mentally prepare yourself for the idea of a wedding." He's smiling and I'm smiling but the difference is that his smile is genuine and mine is so faked that it hurts. "Who knows? Maybe you'll see me up there sayin' my vows and crap and you'll decide to give Peckwell a chance at marrying you. Maybe you'll catch the wedding bug."

"Yeah…maybe." _Am I really this stupid? I went to TWO Ivy League schools. Not one, but TWO. How am I this stupid? How do I not get this? People like Alex don't like people like me. People like me don't get to be with people like him. People like him get… blondes. People like him get blondes with big boobs, that can cook, that can bake, that want to marry him, that want to have his babies. People like him get smart, kind, intelligent beautiful girls. Not people like me. Not people that are brunette with an average body. Someone that's not the greatest cook in the world, someone that doesn't want to get married, someone that doesn't want babies? People like that…they get Jasons. _

"Oh, and I need your help with something…" He begins again. I raise my eyebrows up to let him know I'm listening. "I'm supposed to pick out our song. The song that we're gonna share our first dance to. I'm supposed to pick that out but I don't know any good love songs. Can you help me out with that?"

"…Mhm."

"You're the shit, Jo." He bawls his hand up to a fist and holds it to me. I reluctantly bawl my fist up to and put it against his. After we "pound it out", he turns to leave me alone in the lab again. "…Oh, and what were you gonna say earlier?" He stops walking and turns back around to look at me. "I cut you off before I started telling you about how Izzie wanting to meet you. Sorry about that, but if I didn't say it then, I would've forgot. What were you gonna say though?"

_I was gonna ask you how you felt about the almost kiss…but I kinda get the picture. _"I was just…" I look down at my Jell-O and toothpicks. "I was gonna ask you if you could help me out with dissecting the plane, but I think I get it now." _I was gonna ask you about the kiss, I was gonna ask you what we should do about our feelings for each other… but I'm wrong here. And I'm so sorry that I'm wrong. _"Um… I guess I'll see you later."


	12. Goodness Gracious

"All I'm asking is for you to come out with me. Let me treat you to dinner and a movie and we can do this right. I'm being reasonable, I think." Using his thumb, he's tracing the beds of my nails softly like he actually appreciates me. He looks over at me for a split second then puts his eyes back on the road. "Dinner and a movie babe…that's all." He holds my hand and brings it up to his mouth where he kisses my knuckles. "Then we can go back to my place and do the grown people thing…the right way…in a bed." He's kissing each and every one of my fingers. "I love you…"

I really wish he'd stop saying that. I really wish that he would shut up with that and stop saying that to me because he's not doing anything but confusing me. "…I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning… And I thought we agreed that we're taking a break." I slide my hand out of his grasp and look out the window. I really need to figure out how to do this and how to do it quick. I'm so confused. One minute he's calling me a slut and a liar and throwing me into walls…then the next minute he's all nice and gentlemanlike trying to take me on dates. "I can't go out with you…not tonight."

"You have somewhere to be tomorrow morning?" The tone of his voice is going up a couple pitches which is a direct indication that things have the potential to get ugly here. He rounds the bend in the road and pulls into the driveway to me and Steph's apartment. "How early tomorrow morning? Why didn't you tell me?" He throws the gearshift in park and locks the car doors so I can't get out. "…Are you going somewhere with that punk?"

"No." I grab my purse off the floor in front of me and put my hand on the door handle. "Dr. Torres is letting me scrub in on her surgery tomorrow morning because she's letting me dissect the plane… I have to be at the hospital by 5:30 tomorrow morning so I can spend a little bit of extra time in the Skills Lab. So I'm going inside, taking a shower, eating and going to bed." I unlock my door and begin to pull the handle, but before I can get out, he re-locks the door on me. "Jason…"

"If you're gonna lie, you could at least try to make sure it's a good lie." His hands are gripping the steering wheel so tight that his veins and muscles are flexed and his knuckles are prominent.

"What am I lying about now?" I throw my hands up in the air and sigh. I can't win with him. "I've told you the truth. I have a surgery really early tomorrow morning and I'm already exhausted from today… I really just want to take a shower and lie down for the night. I didn't lie to you about that…"

"You work every other day, Jo! Stop lying to me, you bitch. You work every other day and you worked today which means YOU'RE OFF tomorrow. If you want to blow me off just say so!" I open my mouth to say something but he just keeps going on and on and on. Normally, I'd cuss him back out for calling me a bitch and a lair and stuff but I just don't have the energy to do it tonight. Physically, my back hurts. I think my injuries from last night are really starting to set in because my back is stiff and it hurts when I move my arms. Mentally, I'm drained. I loved working on Orthopedics today with Dr. Torres but I had to think more than I've thought since I've started my internship today. And emotionally? I'm beaten. It takes a lot of emotional energy to deal with someone like Alex. Someone that makes me so sad but still I want to be around him all the time? Yeah, I'm drained from dealing with him today. I just don't have it in me to fight with him tonight. I want to go to sleep. "You're not getting out of this car until you tell me the truth…" He looks at me with accusing eyes.

"I _am _telling you the truth." I rub the corners of my eyes and yawn. "I'm supposed to be off tomorrow but I helped Torres come up with a treatment plan for this kid with osteosarcoma in his leg today, so she's rewarding me by letting me scrub in and dissect the tumor's plane tomorrow morning… I'm not lying. You can call the hospital and ask her if you want…" I put my hand on the handle again. "Please let me go now? I'm so tired…"

"Why didn't you tell her no? Why didn't you tell her that you wanted to keep your day off?" He turns his body completely in his driver's seat so that he's totally facing me. I look down at the floor. I'm so drained. I don't feel like arguing even though he's basically trying to force me into arguing back. "Huh?" He reaches over with his right hand and smacks me in my face, not hard but enough to irritate me. It wasn't really a smack as much as it was a pop. "Why didn't you say no?" Again, he smacks me…harder this time. "You could've said no, couldn't you have?" He smacks me in my mouth this time around. "Answer me, Jo…" I still don't say anything which makes him smack me in the mouth again.

This time, I swat his hand away. "Quiddit." He raises his hand to slap me once more but I swat it away again. "I'm a SURGICAL intern… I'm gonna be a surgeon someday. Why would I say no to the opportunity to get to cut someone open? If that's what I'm training to do?" I sigh. "Besides… I'm an intern. I can't say no to anybody that orders me to do something. If Torres told me to lick the floor, I'd go lick the floor."

"Just like if Karev told you to fuck him in an on-call room, you would." He's biting his lip pretty hard. "Get out of my car, Jo. Get out."

"Unlock the fuckin' door and I will." I snap at him purely out of irritation. I'm irritated that he's calling me a liar and I'm SO irritated that he felt the need to smack me in my mouth five different times…like I'm his kid or something. "And you're not gonna keep calling me a slut. I swear to god you're not. I'm not easy and I'm not a whore so stop it with the slut-shaming."

"It was pretty easy for me to get in those pants of yours." He slides his hand across the seat at me and rests his palm on my kneecap. "Took me what… half an hour or something?" He makes his fingers climb to the button of my jeans and his hand rests flat between my legs. "Wasn't this all I had to do?"

I push his hands away from me and mumble underneath my breath. "Worst mistake of my life…" I wriggle my hips to get his hand from between my legs. "Get off of me… I'm not even kidding." With one movement, he unbuckles his seatbelt and crawls across the seat at me. "Jason, I'm serious… we're not doing this anymore… we're not doing this."

"Why do you always gotta act so tough?" Like I asked him to, he takes his hands from between my legs and wraps them around my body like he's giving me a hug. He buries his face in my neck and starts kissing me. "I love you…" I roll my eyes to the back of my head and sigh. "You hear me?" He mumbles into my neck and I nod. He squeezes my body and plants a soft kiss right below my earlobe. "Do you love me too?" He asks and I remain dead silent and dead still. I'm not gonna tell him that I love him when I clearly don't. "Say it…" I still stay quiet, just letting him hug me. "Do you love me?" I whisper a "no" so low and softly that he shouldn't have been able to hear it…but he did. "No?!" He stops touching me, stops hugging me and pulls away. "No?"

"….I…." I look up at the apartment that I'm desperately dying to get out of this car and get into. "…I could learn." _That's a bold-face lie right there. I could never learn to love him but it sounds good and I need him to let me out of his car before he drives off with me in it and takes me back to his house and does god-knows-what with me. _"I'm just saying that we haven't really… gotten to know each other that well yet and I don't want to lie and say that I love you when I don't love you yet… and…" Like it's happening in slow motion, I watch him bawl his hand up in a fist, draw his arm way back and thrust it forward, connecting with the tiny spot between my upper lip and my nose. _Did he really just hit me in my face? _I bring my hand up to my face and hold it…

He must've hit me pretty hard because my hair flew all over the place and now it's sticking to the blood that's gushing…GUSHING out of my nose. I just don't say anything to him because I don't have anything else to say. I've never been hit in the face by a man before… I've been held down and forced into sex, I've been slammed against a wall, I've had my ass grabbed, I've had my arm squeezed… but never have I been hit in the face by a man. He draws his fist back like he's gonna do it again and I flinch away but he connects with my shoulder with this punch. "Why do you insist on making me hit you?! You know what…" He lunges across my body and opens up my door. "Get out. You always make me hit you! You think I like hitting you?! You MAKE me hit you! You take me to that point! Get out!" He starts pushing me out the door. "You don't wanna go?!" I can't move. I think I'm in shock… he hit me in my face…. He slams the door back shut. "Do you like it when I hit you?! I think you like pissing me off! And now you're gonna TRY to end this, aren't you? Don't forget that if I can't have you then nobody else can."

"…I…." My voice is ravaged with tears and it's shaking and I can't form a sentence. I'm…scared? Mortified, even. He just punched me in my face… "I should go…" I whisper in a daze. I unlock the door and pull on the handle and this time, he lets me go free. I take my hand away from my face and see that it's full of blood. I slide my purse up on my shoulder and walk away from the car. I grab onto the railing that leads up the small flight of steps and stumble a little bit. _He really just punched me like that? I didn't even see it coming. I don't know why I'm surprised that he would hit me, he already threw me against the wall. But I'm in so much shock that I couldn't even hit him back. Did I… did I really make him do that?_

In a complete and utter haze, I open up the door to the apartment and walk right in, shutting it and locking it behind myself. I drop my purse on the floor next to the door and walk through the hallway, towards the living room. Steph's in the living room watching TV I think, because the light is on and I can hear the TV. I go into the living room and stand by the doorway, resting my head against the wall. She looks the same as she did when I left her this morning. She's lying on the couch with a bucket next to her head and blankets pulled up to her chin. How exactly do you tell your best friend that your boyfriend just punched you in your face?

She's looking at her phone but somehow she can tell that I'm standing there without actually looking up at me. "Hey Jo, how was…" Her voice trails off the second she puts her phone down. "…Oh my god." She throws her blankets off her and stands up really fast. All I do is blink once and the tears finally start to fall. I'm proud of myself that I'm JUST how starting to cry. I mean, I thought for sure I'd be crying the second he did it. "Oh my…" She seems like she's in just as much shock as I'm in. Slowly, I walk over to her and she immediately puts her hand on my cheek. "…This is exactly why I said that I was gonna pick you up! I knew…"

I sit down on the couch and finally take the time to feel out my newest injury. My mouth hurts. My nose doesn't hurt…just my mouth. Steph lifts her shirt up over her head and takes it off. She bawls it up and presses it against my face. "What the hell happened?!" She lifts my head up by my chin and keeps dabbing the shirt all over the blood. "I'm calling the cops…screw this."

"No Steph…don't." I shake my head and hold the shirt on my face when she lets it go. "All he's gonna do is tell them that I hit him too and then I'll be in trouble. Steph, I can't get in trouble again… I can't. I'll lose my job, I'll lose everything… don't." I tilt my head back and pinch my sore nose. "Don't call the police."

"Look at your face! He hit you…" She combs my sweaty hair out of the way and slowly peels the shirt away. "He busted your lip wide open and made your nose bleed." She's crying herself which I find…odd. "Please break up with him… please." She brushes her thumb across the sorest spot on my lip. "Jo, you have to end this with him. Please end it… I'm begging you. End it right now. I'll do it… gimme your phone."

"I can't just break up with him." I catch a drop of blood trickling out of my nose with her t-shirt. "I can't… I have to find another way to do it. He… he said he's gonna kill himself if I break up with him Steph and I can't be responsible for that. I can't be responsible for him killing himself…" I sniff and wipe my tears with my hands. "And then he said if he can't have me then nobody else can… that scares me, Steph. What if he's THAT crazy? He's gonna kill me or himself…"

"You're damn right he's gonna kill you!" She takes the bloodied t-shirt off me and throws it to the ground. She grabs me by my shoulders and forces my face into her stomach while she's hugging me. She's standing up and I'm sitting down…and I feel bad because my face is still bleeding and she's wearing a white tank-top. "Either way he's gonna kill you. He's gonna kill you if you do break up with him, he's gonna kill you if you don't. He's gonna kill you, Jo… and I can't sit here and watch. You're my best friend… I don't wanna lose my best friend… and you're gonna make me swear not to tell the cops but Jo, I'm not gonna sit here and watch him while he kills you. Yesterday it was a throw up against the wall…today it was a punch in the face. What if tomorrow he pulls a gun on you? Please… don't make me lose my best friend."

"I'm gonna break up with him…I just don't know how." I grit my teeth. "…I'm pissed, Steph. I'm pissed." My leg starts to shake. "I want to hit him back… I swear to god I want to kill him. I didn't even get the chance to hit him back. I was just in shock about what he did and now… I want to KILL him."

"Then break it off with him! I'm not kidding Jo… either you break up with him or I'm gonna do it."

"I'm gonna do it eventually."

"Do me a favor and don't wait until you're in your grave to do it."

**X X X **

"So aside from asshole, how was your day?"

"It was great, actually." I twirl my fork in a pile of spaghetti noodles and shove it in my mouth. Tomorrow's my turn to cook dinner and I was going to make spaghetti but Steph took my idea. So maybe tomorrow I'll throw some macaroni and cheese in the oven for us since I can't really cook too many things. I have to eat a certain way to avoid my top lip burning where he busted it open. "I was on Orthopedics all day and it was awesome. Dr. Torres is amaze-balls. She let me help her come up with a treatment for a kid with osteosarcoma and she's letting me dissect the plane tomorrow morning. My day was awesome. How about yours?"

"Wait, you're doing a plane dissection tomorrow?!" She swats me softly with the couch pillow. "You bitch! I would kill to cut!" She laughs and takes a heaping bite of spaghetti from her own plate. "But my day was so boring. I sat here and watched Jerry Springer and the Maury show for hours straight. I didn't know there were so many transsexuals in secret relationships and hoes that don't know their baby-daddy in this world. Some girls just shouldn't have children if they're sleeping with that many damn men. Just get an abortion or something."

"That's one way to settle it." I shrug and take a bite outta my garlic bread.

"…Do you believe in that stuff?" She puts her plate down on the coffee table and takes a sip of her drink. "You know how you don't want to get married and you don't want kids?" I nod my head. "What if you got pregnant? Would you abort it or would you just give it up for adoption? Since you don't want them, I mean."

"…Well first of all, I DON'T want kids and I realized that I didn't want kids when I was like twenty…so I went and got the Mirena. I can't get pregnant for five years and when that five years is up, I'm just gonna get another one put in. I'm smart enough to get birth control, because even though I'm pro-choice, I don't believe that abortion is birth control. I hate the ones that KNOW that they don't want to have kids any time soon but figure if they get pregnant that they'll just kill the baby. No, get on birth control you lazy bitch and stop acting like abortion is birth control because it's not." I roll my eyes and put my plate down too. "So yeah, as a doctor, I believe that all women have the right to choose but for me? I wouldn't. I'm pro-choice but it's not something that I would choose for myself. And I wouldn't give it up for adoption either because I don't want my kid to think I abandoned it."

"So then what? Since you wouldn't put it up for adoption and you wouldn't abort it, you'd just have a baby that you'd resent?"

"That's the thing. I wouldn't end up pregnant. In this day and age, there are WAY too many contraceptives for bitches to end up pregnant. Condoms, pills, shots, IUDs, implants…there are WAY too many options these days for there to be unplanned, unwanted pregnancies." I pick up my drink and hold it to my lips but finish off my topic before I sip it. "But if by chance I did wind up pregnant, I would keep it. There's no sense in punishing a baby for something that I did. I wouldn't want it, but I wouldn't resent it either. I'm not heartless, Steph. I'd love my baby boy or my baby girl if I had one. But I don't want one and I'm not gonna have one. I'm on that good five-year plan with the Mirena."

"I feel you on that." She nods. "I got that implant thing in my arm. I started off with the pill but I got really bad with it and I had two pregnancy scares because I wasn't taking my pill right so I was just like screw it, gimme the implant. I want kids though. When I settle down and when the time is right, I want four kids. Two girls and two boys hopefully."

"That's WAY too many goddamned kids." I shake my head slowly at her. "I mean… Aunt Jo will babysit whenever you need her to, but not all at once. Aunt Jo would kill herself if she had to watch all four of your bad ass kids at one time."

"If you're willing to babysit, why not just have your own? Your soul is black. You love to work on Pediatrics but you don't want kids?"

"Nope. Kids are a hassle. They scream, they cry, they whine, they yell, they puke, they shit, they piss and they're always leaking some kind of bodily fluid. I'm not a snot-rag and I'm not a professional shit-cleaner. Babies are gross. Cute, but gross. Plus, I'd be a horrible mom. I just can't really imagine someone calling me 'Mommy'. Nah."

"But your kids would be so cute! Imagine if you married a sexy light-skinned man… your baby would have pretty hair and pretty eyes… and a pretty skin color. Just think about your pretty babies…"

"Steph, I don't want children." I bite my lip because this conversation goes deeper than she'll ever know. "I just can't see myself raising my baby in a world like this. People are horrible and what if…" I sigh. "I can't protect my kid from everything in this world. What if my baby had to go into foster care? What if my baby got a bastard foster dad that rapes them out of their virginity? Just what if, you know? You can't protect your kids from everything and if I was ever somebody's mother… I would feel like shit knowing that my kid could be exposed to the shit I was exposed to. That's not… right. I don't want to bring a baby into the world knowing all of that uncertainty. I don't want kids. I feel like babies deserve to have parents that are gonna be the BEST parents to them. They should have parents that want them, that will take off work to teach them to ride a bike, that will pack their lunches on the first day of kindergarten… that's not me. So I'd rather just not have them. And I really, highly doubt that I'll ever change my mind about wanting babies…"

"So you're telling me that if you got pregnant right now… you would keep it?"

"…Nah, I'd probably take the bridge. And I'm not even joking. I'm taking the bridge."

"You're horrible! You never need to get married to a man that wants kids…"

"Speaking of marriage…" I want to change this conversation and this seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. "I got invited to Alex's wedding."

"…No you didn't."

"I did." I poke my lip out. "And he was all… 'No pressure, but I would love it if you came, BUDDY.' Buddy…Buddy, STEPH. BUDDY."

"…Well Jo, you knew he was engaged when you went all batshit crazy and goo-goo eyed over him."

"Yeah… but I forgot. It was like… we were talking and I just forgot for a minute. And I'm so stupid because I thought that hey… the almost kiss could mean something. But it didn't. He's all crazy over his fiancé. He wants me to meet her…"

"And did you tell him no?!"

"No! I couldn't tell him no… if I told him no, then that would just flat-out tell him that I have some feelings for him. Can you imagine him telling me that he wants me to meet his fiancé and then me telling him no? That alone would tell him that I'm feeling some kind of way for him."

"…You're in love with Karev, aren't you?"

"I'm not in love with him. I'm not. I just…" I sigh. I've never been very good with dishing out my feelings. I can never tell anybody how I feel about them without clamming up because I DON'T open up to many people. I can't express my feelings very well. "I feel like he's it. You know? I feel like… like when I see him, I melt. And I forget about everything because nothing else matters when it's me and him talking. I don't feel like I have to hide. I don't feel like I have to try and make myself appear to be ladylike. I don't have to doll myself up in makeup around him because he sees me. And he's my friend…and it's natural to be myself around him. No other guy has ever made me feel like this, Steph. I'm not in love with him, but I feel like I'm supposed to be. I feel like he's the one that god wants me to be with. I don't think I'd be feeling like I'm gonna throw up around him if it wasn't something special. And I swear I thought he felt the same way because… the feeling I get when I'm with him isn't something that only I should be feeling. It's something…electric. Like we're on the same current." I'm going to cry if I don't stop. "And today… I wanted to ask him if he felt like that. If he felt like we were on the same current. I wanted to know if he felt that way too…but he started talking about his wedding and his marriage and I got the picture."

"…You fall way too hard, way too fast."

"But it's NOT like all those other times. It's not like when I slept with Professor Gaines. It's not like me sleeping with Jason on our second date. It's not like that. It's not like that at all. I don't… I don't want to hop in the bed with Alex. I don't want to sleep with him. It's more like… like I feel like I can love him. He's different. I don't love him and I'm not in love with him. I'm not. But I feel like I could be. I could be in love with him and I could see myself annoying him for the rest of my life. I wouldn't get tired of busting his balls and I wouldn't get tired of listening to him tease me. I could see that being our forever…. But he doesn't see it."

"So maybe he's not your forever. Maybe you're just backwards with it. Maybe you think it's him but it's not."

"I can't ignore this though. I'm scared to death that he's gonna married and we're gonna spend the rest of our lives being friends and I'll spend the rest of my life falling for him." I look down at the couch cushions. "Nevermind."

"I get what you're saying Jo… I get it. You're saying that he's your…. It. Your… your ultimate. It's—"

"…Please stop quoting Freaky Friday, Stephanie. This is serious."

"I'm just saying… that's kind of the vibe I'm getting from you."

"…And this is why I don't open up to anybody."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Hey loser." She doesn't look like she's in the mood, so rather than ruffle her hair like I was going to when I approached her, I just tap her in the shoulder. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?" _Wait, she had a surgery with Torres… That's right. _"…Did your surgery go badly?" Even though I can tell that she's not in a good mood, I am. I'm in a great mood for the second day in a row. Yesterday it was because Izzie and I got some hardcore wedding planning done and today I'm in a good mood because…well…it's none of your business what my fiancé and I did in the shower this morning. Regardless of the fact that I'm in a great mood because I got laid this morning, it's pretty apparent that Jo's in a shitty mood.

She runs her hands through her long, silky brunette hair and stretches out her neck. "The surgery went well… I didn't mess up." I don't know how she would react if I were to ask her about it, but I do notice she has a blemish on her usually perfect face. Around the edge of her nose is a little bit purple like it's bruised and on her upper lip, it's red like she smeared her lipstick or something. Some girls freak out when guys point out things like pimples or unsightly things on their faces, but this isn't a pimple so I wonder if she'd mind if I asked. It looks like someone hit her in her mouth. "Do you have anything for me to do up on Peds? I'm supposed to ask everyone if they have any scut for me to do since I'm the only intern working today."

"…I could probably find you some scut to do up in the NICU if you give me a minute." I stop walking so she'll take the hint and stop walking too. "What happened to your lip? Did you bite it?"

"….Yeah…kind of." She shrugs. "So gimme the scut…"

"If you'd slow down for a minute." I hold my hand out at her. "I was gonna see if you want to come down to the cafeteria and have lunch with me and my fiancé…since she wants to meet you."

"Oh… right." She yawns. "She wants to meet me today?"

"Well yeah… but if you're busy…"

"No, today's fine… I love today."

"Alright, then come on." I start walking again in the direction of the cafeteria. "Yeah, and about your lip… did you rinse your mouth out with salt-water when you bit it? It could get infected if you didn't…"

"I'm a doctor, Alex… I know the proper protocol." She kind of gets smart with me. Maybe she's PMSing. Something's wrong with her because Jo never acts like this. She's usually so bright and bubbly. Maybe meeting Izzie today is a bad decision. She looks up at me. "…I didn't bite it, by the way. But I'm guessing you already knew that…"

"I guess I did." I shrug. I knew that the story about her biting her lip was a crock of shit, I just assumed that her lying about it meant that she didn't want to talk about it. But it's virtually impossible for her to bite her top lip in the position that it's split… and plus, a bitten lip doesn't explain why her nose is bruised. "Who'd you pick a fight with, Hobo Jo?"

"Boyfriend." She puts her hands in the pockets of her scrub pants and keeps walking alongside me.

"…Peckwell?" I stop walking dead in my tracks once again to look at her. "He hit you?"

"Yep. But you know…what's it matter to you?" Even though I stopped walking, she didn't. She's a couple steps ahead of me now.

"Dude…you're being weird." I grab her by her arm and pull her back to me. "What do you mean by that? Of course it matters to me… you want me to kick his ass? You're my friend… I don't want any man putting his hands on you…or any girl for that matter. I can't stand women beaters."

"I'm fine, Alex…" She runs her hands through her hair again. "I don't need you to protect me. I'm fine. I'm breaking up with him and I don't need your help…I don't want your help. Leave me alone, okay? I just want to meet your wife so I can get that over with." She says that like she really doesn't want to meet Izzie and that's fine. I'm not forcing her to…but she's my friend and I do want her to meet my wife. I want Iz to see how awesome Jo is. I feel like Iz would love Jo. "I'm just sick of this…" She mumbles.

"…Did I do something to make you hate me?" I cross my arms. "Seriously dude, what's your issue? What are you sick of?"

"Nothing."

"Something…."

"Please just leave me alone, okay? I'm not in a good mood and I'm not in the mood for anything today. Between fighting with Jason and fighting with myself… I'm running low on patience. And you're really not making it any better…" She has the worst attitude today and this is NOT the Jo I'm used to…

"Is there something you want to talk to me about? …Do you have something against meeting my…" _…You gotta be kidding me. You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I'm just gonna ask her straight up. _"What are you, crushing on me? Is that why you're so pissed? You've been in a shitty mood ever since I mentioned my fiancé to you…"

"Oh don't flatter yourself." She rolls her eyes. "No. Am I allowed to not be in a good mood? I'm not into you…" _Well that almost kiss determined that you're telling a lie. I can't believe it took me this long to piece it all together. She almost kissed me and she thinks that it meant something. Dammit. Why do I always get stuck with the crazy, delusional girls? Jo's pretty and all but I've never nor will I ever be into her. _"I'm just in a really bad mood."

"Jo, I'm being serious. Is there something you have to tell me?" I'm trying to be lenient with her but I'm not gonna lie. I'm going to be SO pissed if she admits to having some delusional little crush on me. And I honestly won't talk to her.

"NO ALEX." She groans and pulls onto a clump of her hair out of frustration. "I DON'T like you. I'm so tired of everyone accusing me of that. I don't freaking like you. I'm allowed to have boys that are friends! I don't have ANY feelings for you…so shut up about it and leave me alone about it. I'm not in a good mood and I don't have to be. You'd be in a shitty mood too if your boyfriend was wailing on you last night." She rolls her eyes. "And don't you dare tell anybody."

"…Okay Jo. But you're being weird."

"I'm sorry. I'm just in a really bad mood."


	13. The Best Day

"Oooh…whatcha doin'?" Cristina leans against my back so she can read over my shoulder. "Anything cool? Staring at a blank piece of paper?" She's chewing obnoxiously in my damn ear on what smells like pretzels. Not that I'm having much luck anyway, but I felt like I was getting a breakthrough and she just blew my concentration. I have until tomorrow morning to give Izzie a song and I'm still lost. I don't know any love songs and the ones I googled last night were so cheesy and just… not me. I could really use Jo's help with the music because she has good taste but she hasn't spoken to me since yesterday afternoon when she freaked out on me over meeting Izzie.

They didn't end up meeting, by the way. After our little squabble, Jo walked away from me and I haven't seen her since. I wish I knew what her problem is but as much as I feel like we're the same person, I can't read her mind. I think she wants to talk to me about the almost kiss but I honestly don't think we have anything to talk about. She screamed at me yesterday when I implied that maybe she had feelings for me so judging by her reaction, I would say that's out of the question. If she doesn't have feelings for me and she doesn't feel differently for me than I feel about her, then I don't know why she clammed up when I mentioned meeting Iz again. Maybe she was just in a bad mood from Peckwell.

"I'm supposed to be coming up with a sappy love song for me and Iz to dance to. I know one of you guys has to have a suggestion." I sit back in my chair and sigh. I'd rather do anything else than pick out some crappy love tune that I have to dance with my newlywed wife to. I'd rather pick out the cake topper or tie ribbons on candleholders. I'd rather do hardcore interior design than pick out a simple song. I'm not good with crap like this.

"I thought you had your little intern friend helping you out with that." Avery sits down across from me and starts poking his fork through a bowl of fruit. Jackson's usually the only one out of all of us that eats a decent breakfast and that's due to April constantly packing his breakfast and his lunches. We used to really bust his balls about how Apes treats him like a four year old, but I actually think it's kind of…cute. I would never willingly admit that I think that it's nice that April makes sure he eats well while he's at work, but I do. I kind of hope Iz does that for me once we're married. It wouldn't make a difference if Iz packed my lunch to me or not because here at the hospital, the food isn't so bad… but it's kind of nice to know that Apes thinks of Jackson like that.

"Yeah well my little intern friend started PMSing yesterday and I haven't talked to her since so now it's all on me." I pick up the pencil and put it against the pad of paper I have sitting in front of me. "Oh come on. I'm the only person in this room that isn't frickin' married. You all went through the wedding thing and none of you people have ONE sappy little love song you can offer?"

"What part of 'I GOT MARRIED ON A POST-IT! NOTE' don't you understand? Sorry Alex, but if that doesn't scream anti-church wedding, big poofy gown to you…I don't know what will." Mere's sitting in the corner of the lounge with her feet up on a table and her nose buried deep in some kind of medical magazine. "Your best bet is Kepner. She's the only one here that could probably help you out."

"Avery, where's your wife?" I slam the pencil back down out of frustration and slide my chair out. "I have until tomorrow morning to think of a damn song and I don't have time. I'm in and out of the NICU today, scrubbing in on a surgery with Robbins… I'm too busy to think of a lousy song." But did I mention that I really care about the song? I know I act like I don't, but I really do. It can't just be any song. It has to be meaningful and it has to actually reflect on the way I feel. I can't just pick some random song talking about being the wind beneath my wings because that's cheesy and not at all heartfelt and I feel like she'd notice if I didn't put any effort into picking a good one.

"She is… down in the pit with Hunt, I believe. But don't go bother finding her because she has an OB/GYN appointment in half an hour so her mind will probably be elsewhere." He says with a mouthful of fruit. I sit back down and put my head down against the table. I'm in a room full of wedding imbeciles. Meredith and Derek got married on a freaking sticky note. No church, no family, no friends, no ceremony. Just a trip down to city hall and vows written on a sticky note. Cristina's first wedding ended with her being left at the altar and cut out of her dress. Her second wedding to Hunt was in the house that is now me and Izzie's house. There were friends and family but that's it. Just a house. Not a church either. And Avery? Well him and Kepner are the LAST people I should be asking about getting married.

The talk about the way those two ran off and got married is just now starting to die down. Did I mention that my friends have a nasty habit of leaving people/getting left at the altar? April left her supposed-to-be-husband at the altar and ran off with Jackson to get married, I shit you not about that. Maybe my friends are the last people I should take advice from. They're all jinxed or something. I stand back up and walk over to the door. "Where are you running off to now, Spawn?" Cristina asks me just before I walk out.

"Dermatology." I mumble and walk straight out. I'm going to go up to Dermatology to see Izzie because I have to ask her a question. She's working the overnight shift tonight because apparently it's "skin cancer season" and there has to be at least one round-the-clock dermatologist on call. Since Iz is working the overnight, I'm gonna have the house to myself, and tonight would be a good opportunity for me to have friends over. Assuming that Jo isn't completely pissed and done being my friend, that is.

I push the button to call the elevator to my floor and wait for it. It seems like Jo's cool whenever it's just me and her. She's my usual, bubbly, happy, friendly Jo whenever it's just us. Maybe she wouldn't mind coming over for a beer later so we can pick out this goddamn song. The elevator door opens up and I step right inside, but I'm instantly irritated. Standing in the back with his eyes on his pager is that douchebag in pink scrubs. _Jo said yesterday that she didn't want nor did she need my help with him… so I just won't say anything. But boy do I want to kick him in his teeth. _

And I don't even want to beat him up specifically because he put his hands on Jo… I want to kick his ass for hitting a female period. It's a really big pet peeve of mine when guys hit girls. I don't care if a girl is coming after you with razor blades…if you're a guy, you don't have any business hitting a girl back. Plus, I can't even imagine what Jo could've possibly done for him to punch her in her face. Maybe the girl is some kind of psycho-maniac that she doesn't show around me. But from what I've seen… Jo doesn't really give anybody a reason to so much as raise a voice at her. I don't know maybe it's because I grew up with an asshole dad that used to hit my crazy ass mother, but guys that hit girls REALLY get under my skin.

The elevator door opens up again to let me off on my floor. I don't even look back at him before I walk off. The only reason I didn't say anything or do anything to that asshole is because I think Jo's already pissed at me for some odd reason and I don't need her to be pissed with me furthermore for breaking my foot off in her boyfriend's ass. I can't afford for her to be mad at me at all right now because I'm desperate for her help with this song. I yank open the door to Dermatology and walk straight inside. It smells so calm and homely in here as opposed to the rest of the hospital. Derm really is like a totally different world. It's like it's separate from the rest of the hospital. Nobody in here is rushed, everybody is calm… it's pleasant. It's a pleasant place for Iz to work.

"Oooh… Stevens… your man-candy is here." A heavier-set, blonde-haired lady that's working at the reception desk calls to the back to grab Iz for me. The ladies up here love me. Not only because I'm devilishly handsome, but because they really like Izzie up here and they like the fact that I treat her well. I'm always up here bringing Iz lunch, making sure she's taking her pills, bringing her little snacks throughout the day. They literally love me up here on Derm. "Angelina, this is Isobel's soon-to-be-husband… the one we were telling you about." The blonde introduces me to a tiny redheaded girl. She must be an intern because she's new and I've never seen her up here before.

"Alex Karev." I formally introduce myself and lean against the counter while I wait for Iz.

"Alex is the total package, isn't he Mary?" A tall brunette one speaks up from her spot at a computer behind the counter I'm standing at. Her name is Rebecca and I think she's Iz's best friend that she works with. I wink at Becca and continue to wait while she keeps gushing over me. "He's sensitive. He works down on the floor with all the babies and the little kids. And he's so sweet…"

"Not to mention a bit of a bug-a-boo." Iz comes out through a wooden door and opens up the gate so she can come from behind the counter to see me. "What do you need, babe?" She instantly wraps her arms around my waist and puts her head against my chest. Call me cheesy, but I never get tired of this feeling. The feeling of her arms around me and her head on my chest while I'm looking down at her? It's priceless. "It's not even close to lunch time yet."

"Yeah I know…" I tangle a couple of my fingers in her hair out of sheer appreciation for her beauty. "I came to ask you a question. You're working the overnight tonight, aren't you?" Instead of opening her mouth, she just nods her head and squeezes her arms around my waist tighter. I curl my finger in her hair and pull her a little bit closer. "Alright, so I'm gonna pick that song out for you tonight and I'll have it by the time you get home tomorrow morning. But I came to see if you cared if I have one of the guys over for a beer?" _I think I can stop referring to Jo as "one of the guys" and my "buddy" now. I've thoroughly convinced myself that there are no feelings for her…at least for now. _"Jo said she'll help me out with the song since I've got shitty taste in love songs and I just wanted to know if you cared if she was over tonight."

"I don't care." She shakes her head and finally picks her head up off my chest. She looks up at me. "Just make sure the house doesn't stink if you're gonna have company. Light a couple candles to make sure it smells good and don't leave dishes in the sink. And there's clean clothes all over the living room so just stick them upstairs in our bedroom for me. Just…don't bring your company into a dirty house."

I chuckle because our house is never dirty. Iz is like… a neat freak. Everything is spic and span and everything has its own place…neat and tidy. The house never smells bad and the only thing that's "dirty" about it right now is the fact that yes, our laundry is all over the living room. But they're not dirty clothes, they're clean clothes. Plus, Jo wouldn't judge even if the house was dirty. I don't think she's like that. Then again, I don't know Jo much these days. I thought I knew her but I'm not sure if I do anymore. "Alright. Just wanted to make sure it was okay with you if she was over. If she's in a better mood today, you cool with taking another late lunch? I really want you to meet 'er."

"I'm fine with taking a late lunch." She shrugs and puts her head back down on my chest. "But don't force it. If she's busy or nervous to meet or whatever don't force it. I trust your judgment and I trust you when you say that she's a cool kid. I trust you, babe." She smiles. "Plus, you said she's just like you and I've been thinking… do I really need another Alex in my life? Even if she is the female Alex?"

"You love me." I kiss the top of her head. "And if you love me then you'd love Jo."

"I'll meet your new friend when the time is right." She lets me go but I can tell that she didn't want to. "I have to get back to work and so do you. I'll see you later, alright? And just call me on my cell to let me know if you want me to take a late a lunch or not."

"Alright babe, I will."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I think I'm gonna take Steph's advice and try to just be friends with Alex. Maybe she's right, you know? Maybe he's not the one that I'm thinking he is…but if he's not then I'm so confused, because I've never felt like this for a boy before. So he must be something special, right? I wouldn't clam up every time he talks to me. My stomach wouldn't churn and I wouldn't feel like I'm floating on a goddamn cloud every time he's around if he wasn't something special. In regardless to how I'm feeling, he made it clear yesterday that I'm just a girl with a silly little crush on him. He doesn't feel that way about me. I can't make him like me back and I'd rather be his friend than nothing at all.

The way I acted yesterday though, I wouldn't be surprised if he never wanted to talk to me again. I acted like a brat yesterday but it was within good reason. And it wasn't because Jason hit me. I was long over that by that time. By that time, I had already decided that I wasn't gonna return any of Jason's phone calls and I was going to avoid him at all costs. Eventually he'll get the picture that this is over. I acted like a complete bitch yesterday towards Alex, but… he was acting so weird towards me. And he kind of just assumed that I wanted to meet his wife right then and right there and I wasn't ready. I won't be ready to meet his wife/fiancé or whatever until I'm sure that I can sit in her presence without breaking down in tears.

It's my fault, really. I just assumed that the almost-kiss meant that he wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him which wasn't the case. And now I'm embarrassed because I kind of just threw myself on him, assuming that he felt the same way when he didn't. But I really did forget that he was engaged to be married…I swear I did. We just got to talking that day and it felt so… right to kiss him. I felt like we were really connecting but that's my fault because I guess we weren't. It was all in my head… So yesterday, my bitchy attitude, it was crossed between being irritated with myself for thinking that he seriously felt the same attraction that I felt and being annoyed at the fact that he was just pushing me into meeting his fiancé.

This might sound really cocky and arrogant and REALLY self-centered, but… Alex is the first guy that I've wanted that doesn't want me back and I mean that in the most modest way possible. I mean it in a sense that when I've crushed on a guy, the feeling was usually mutual. 99.9% of the time, the guy liked me back and we got together just like that. I've never felt this kind of rejection before and it's even worse because I'm expected to help him plan his wedding as his friend and then go sit at that wedding like it's not breaking my heart that the only man I've ever really, really, really wanted…is marrying someone that's ten times better than me.

I'm back on Dr. Torres' service again today and she ordered me to get labs for the osteosarcoma patient we operated on yesterday. The lab techs are running super slow today and I've been sitting here waiting for someone to service me for ten minutes already. "Wilson!" All of a sudden, Dr. Robbins' voice sounds from behind me. I'm not on her service so I'm not sure what she wants. I turn my head to let her know that she's got my attention. "Since you're already here and waiting, can you get me labs for…" She looks down at her electronic chart. "Webster. Brynn Webster."

"…B…" I wrinkle my brow and bite my lip. Now, I know there are a million Brynns in this world and probably a thousand of them reside in Seattle. But I can't help but wonder… Even though I never knew her last name… "…How old is that patient, Dr. Robbins? And what's… what's she in for?"

"She's been in for a little less than a week now. She was brought in as a trauma patient…something about a truck driver not being able to see her in the street. Multiple crush injuries, hematoma…the whole nine. Poor kid's been conscious and in pain for three days now." Dr. Robbins closes her eyes like she's thinking. "I think she's two and a half but that's off the top of my head because I'm too lazy to reopen her chart."

"…Can I…" I cover my mouth with my hand because I'm probably going to start crying here in a minute. "Can I see her? I…" I put down the paper chart that Dr. Torres handed me earlier on the counter. "I'm sorry…" I hold my pager so it doesn't fall off my scrub top and make a break for the Peds floor. I'm still not sure if the little girl is who I think it is, but what are the chances? And if she's been here for nearly a week now, how come I didn't know sooner? I slow my running pace down to a light jog so I don't get into trouble. I get to the Pediatric nurses' station. Out of breath, I start to talk. "What room is…" I'm breathing so heavy. "Brynn Webster in?"

One of the nurses looks down at her computer. "307… Can I help you, Dr. Wilson?"

I turn around and start running back to room 307. I know it's terrible of me to wish this upon somebody else's child, but I swear to god I hope it's somebody else's kid and not mine. Okay, she's not really MY kid but she might as well have been. I fed that little girl every single day for a month. I hope to god that I didn't go through all of that trouble to get that little girl taken off her mom only for her to get hit by a fucking car. I rest my head against a wall and take a couple breaths to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that my kid might be in this room.

I wrap my hand around the doorknob and twist it. I push it open and walk inside. It's really quiet in here except for the humming of machines and ventilators and the soft sound of children's cartoons playing. I push the pink curtain to the side and purse my lips together in preparation for what I might see. _Oh no… _I recognize those chubby, cream colored cheeks and that thick brown hair that curls at the ends. And those long eyelashes and unruly eyebrows further confirm my suspicion. _Don't cry… don't cry. I don't want to wake her up with my crying. _"Brynnie…" I whisper to myself as I walk closer to the bed.

On the up side of all this, she looks really comfortable. She has a little bandage wrapped around her head and a bright purple cast on her arm and a pink one on her leg. She's sucking on one of those generic green pacifiers that the hospital gives to newborn babies. And it looks like she's breathing on her own. _Why didn't I know she was here sooner? Granted I got kicked off Peds so I wouldn't have known…but still. I feel so lousy. What if she doesn't even remember me? _Because I can't help myself, I nestle my finger into the palm of her hand. I went through all of that to get her taken off her addict of a mother just for the poor thing to get hit by a damn car… She's a baby. How does a baby get hit by a car? Who was supposed to be watching her?

Just when it's so quiet in here that I could hear a pin drop, my pager goes off. I squeeze it tight in my hand to shut it up so I don't wake her up. I really don't want to leave her. I want to be here when she wakes up but I'm needed elsewhere… When I silence my pager, I look down to see who wants me. _What the hell is Alex paging me for? _Slowly, I take my finger out of Brynn's hand. "I'll be back… I promise I'll be back, sweetheart." I lean down and kiss her on a part of her cheek that won't hurt her badly battered body. "I'll be back." I turn and very reluctantly, leave her room. I shut the door behind myself and go back to the nurses' station, but Dr. Robbins stops me.

"Are you alright there, Wilson?" She asks. I nod my head, wiping away a tear that fell out of my eye. That really hurts, man. Seeing my kid like that, I mean. "Are you sure?" I nod again and cough because that annoying gunk that you get when you're crying hard is stuck in my throat. "You know you're still not supposed to be up here on this floor without supervision… are you sure you're okay?" She touches my shoulder.

"…I know that little girl." I wipe my eyes really hard and attempt to pull myself together. "She used to live in the apartment across from me. I…" I sniff and cough again. "I called the police so they would take her away from her mother. I used to feed her dinner because her mom wouldn't feed her. And it just sucks, you know? That I did all of that… just for her to get hit by a car." I sniff again and groan. "Ughhhh…." I sigh. "I'm sorry, Dr. Robbins… that won't happen again." I sniff once more. "Can you just page me when she wakes up? I really want to see her while she's awake, if that's possible."

"I'll make sure the nurse on her case pages you as soon as she wakes up. I won't even tell her to page me… I'll tell her to page you. Alright?"

"Thanks."

"She's gonna be okay, Wilson… she'll be okay."

"I know." I swear this day can't get any worse.

**X X X**

"You paged me?" I approach him when I finally get to where he paged me to. He paged me to a fucking elevator… not to a room, but to an elevator. Whatever though. I just have to remind myself that being his friend is better than being nothing at all so I have to put aside the irritation I'm feeling towards being in his presence. It's just so hard being around him knowing that I'm dying for him to notice that I'm slowly falling for him and he's too wrapped up in his fiancé to notice that I'm right here in front of him.

"Yeah. I was looking for you all morning but I couldn't find you so I had to page you." _Stop looking at him. Don't look at him…it just hurts worse when I look at him. _"Are you still mad at me?"

"No, but I do want to talk to you about something, okay?" Out of pure nervousness, I start wringing my hands. "I don't want you to be mad at me, okay? I just want you to be honest with me because… well, by saying this, I'm being honest with you. Are you listening?" _Just ask him if he felt anything during the almost kiss. Ask him if he feels the same way. Ask him if he's fighting the same feelings I'm fighting. And if he says no… then… _"I really want to talk to you about something—"

"Great… I have something to talk to you about too." Oh my god, YES! So he IS feeling the same? He wants to talk about the almost kiss too? YES.

"Really?" I look up at him. "You first."

"…Alright." He shrugs his shoulders. "I was wondering… if you were up to meeting Izzie today because if you're not busy tonight, I want you to come over and chill and drink a beer and help me pick out this song. She already told me that she doesn't care if I have company over later but I'd feel better if you guys met. She usually meets all my friends. So I was just wondering." I'm sure that he can see the disappointment written clear across my face. Well that's not what I thought he was gonna say. I've gotta stop assuming things. Damn. "…Look Jo, I know I haven't really been a good friend lately ever since Iz got back from Chehalis but I'm just trying to juggle between being your friend and being a soon-to-be-husband as well as a good doctor. I'm sorry that I can't hang out and be buddies with you all the time but that's what I like about our friendship. I like how we can just pick up where we left off even if we don't have time for each other." I can't even open my mouth without tears spewing out of my eyes, my nose and my mouth. I'm just gonna cry out of all of my body holes. "…So? What do you say? You wanna hang out tonight?"

"…Sure." I bite my lip. "What time should I come over?"

"Eh… you don't work tomorrow and I go in late tomorrow, so… around 9:30? Is that good for you?" I nod my head to avoid having to talk any more than I already have to. I swear with every word I say, I'm closer and closer to breaking down. "Great… I'll order pizza and stuff, my treat. uh… I'll text you with my address? What's your number?"

"…942-555-….0989."

"Alright, I got it." He's typing it into his cell phone. "Now what were you gonna say? You were saying that you wanted to tell me something before you let me go first…"

"Huh? Nothing."

"…Come on, Jo… you can tell me anything. What were you gonna say?"

"…I was actually just gonna ask you when you wanted me to help you out with that song." I bite my lip. "…I was gonna be honest with you and say that I was really excited to help you out." I clear my throat. "So 9:30? I'll wear my PJs and… we can just chill." _It just physically hurt me to say that. _ "I'll see you tonight…buddy?"

"Yeah… I'll see you."

_Correction. Now this day can't get any worse._


	14. Music

**A/N:** So this chapter is quite long, but I had a lot of material to cover in it. With that being said, there are a lot of songs in this chapter and I DON'T OWN ANY OF THEM. All credit goes to the artists. Also, there might be a lot of dialogue in this chapter, but I encourage you to read all of it. It may seem pointless to the story but I assure you that it's not. A lot of the things that are said will be brought up in later chapters in order to show character growth. So even though it might get a little boring and it might seem pointless (mostly between Jo and Steph) I promise that it's really important to the story and you'll see why in later chapters.

Oh yeah, and **M **rated stuff in this chapter. Getting closer and closer to changing the story's rating completely to **M**, so be on the lookout when it does change.

* * *

><p>I'm honestly not so sure about this. I feel like if I had said no to him about helping pick the song, he'd think that I was just acting weird again and he'd dismiss our entire friendship and that's not what I want. But in saying yes, I'm not sure what I just did to myself. I can't promise myself that I'm going to make it out of this without having to excuse myself to the bathroom to break down and cry. I've already resigned myself to the fact that he doesn't have feelings for me, despite the fact that I really thought we made a connection. I've gotten used to the thought of being his friend. And I'm not even going to attempt to ask him about his feelings anymore, because every single time I say something and I think the conversation is leading one way, it goes another and I end up just being really fucking sad for the rest of the day.<p>

I lean forward and turn the nozzle to shut off the water and swallow a lump in my throat. I'm really proud of myself because up until this point, I haven't cried since this afternoon. I have a lot on my mind between worrying about if Brynn is okay and being all depressed over the fact that I want someone that doesn't even think of me, so crying is something I would've expected to do a lot of…but nope. I haven't cried in a few hours and I'm still going strong. And usually when I want to cry, the shower is the place I do it so again, I'm on a roll with surprising myself.

I pull back the curtain and grab my towel off the edge of the sink. I open it up and wrap it around my body. I reach up and pull my hair out of the bun I threw it up in. I would've washed my hair but it takes forever to air dry and when it dries, it dries all wavy and messy and there's no way I'm going over Alex's with bad hair. I tuck my towel under my armpit so it won't fall and grab my toothbrush. I squeeze a pile of toothpaste on my toothbrush and start brushing my teeth.

The bathroom door opens up and Steph walks in it wearing nothing but her bra and her underwear. "You coming to Joe's with us?" She goes immediately over to the shower and starts her water. "I don't know if Leah and them told you about it, but we're all going to Joe's for a drink and then we're probably gonna go back to Heather and Leah's to just chill." She unclasps her bra and tosses it in the hamper then moves on to her underwear.

"I thought I told you that I'm going to Alex's." When I'm done brushing my teeth, I put my toothbrush back inside the toothbrush holder and grab Steph's brush off the shelf on the wall. "I swear you asked me this already and I told you that I was going over Alex's for a couple hours." I start dragging her brush through my hair. My towel fell down to my waist but my hair is long enough to cover my boobs so I'm not worried plus it's Steph in here with me.

"You didn't tell me that." She steps into the shower and closes the curtain behind herself. "…Why are you doing that to yourself? Are you seriously going over there?" She pokes her head out of the shower and looks at me. "Seriously, Jo. I don't get how somebody so smart can make such dumb decisions. You are dumb."

"He's still my friend and I'm just going over there as his friend." When I'm done with my hair, I grab my makeup bag and rummage through it for my eyeliner. "He asked me to come over for a beer because he wants me to help him pick out a wedding song. I can be his friend, Steph. It'll suck…but I can be his friend." I pull my eyelid down so I can apply my bottom eyeliner. "And I really don't think I'm being dumb. He still doesn't know that I'm crushing on him and I don't want him to ever know. He asked me and if I had said no, that'd be a dead giveaway. I just have to suck it up." I move on to my next eye when I'm done with the one I was just working on.

"I just don't get you though." She closes the curtain back and talks to me through it. "Why do you have to go after the losers, the marrieds and the psychos? You're not ugly, Jo… you can have anyone you want. But you have a shitty way of picking them."

"…The heart wants what the heart wants?" I guess she's right about that. I do tend to fall for boys I have no business falling for. And then I always end up so heartbroken and pissed off and bitter when the guy ends up being married or soon-to-be-married or a loser or a psycho. I don't know, maybe I'm just attracted to the real jerks. I can't explain why I fall for the ones I shouldn't fall for. "It's not like I know they're married, engaged, a loser or a psycho when I initially go after them though. It's just my shitty luck…not my shitty judgment."

"Liar. You knew your professor was married and you still had sex with him. And you knew Karev was engaged. The only one you can't be accountable for is Chest Peckwell and you're still being an idiot by not breaking up with him."

"Hey Steph… shut up." I put my makeup bag away and sit down on the toilet not because I have to pee but because I want to finish our conversation. "…I already know I make shitty decisions without you reiterating it. Okay, my professor? That was a huge mistake and I knew it was a mistake while we were doing it. That one WAS shitty decision making and I admit that. And Jason… that was shitty decision making too. I'm not saying if I never slept with him he wouldn't be so psycho, because you can't fix crazy and clearly he was already crazy before I got with him… and yeah I fucked up by having sex with him and I get that too. But Alex is different. It's not like I liked him at first…"

"If you knew it was a mistake then why'd you do it?" She shuts off the shower water and opens up the curtain. "You said you knew it was a mistake while you were doing it. If you knew it was a mistake then why'd you even do it? It's not like you didn't know it was a mistake before you did it. What did you, let him crawl on top of you, start humping then say WHOA WAIT this is a mistake? You're not that stupid."

"No…" I clutch my towel to my body and close my eyes. She's kind of pissing me off but it's Steph so I'm trying to be really lenient about it. "I was just like… thinking. While we were doing it I was just like… wow, this is the lowest thing you've ever done. But I didn't stop it because… I dunno." I shrug my shoulders. "It felt good and I liked it…so I just didn't stop. But I cried afterwards and that kinda ruined it, so."

"Are you just super attracted to old guys?" She wraps her own towel around herself and goes over to the sink just like I did when I got out. "I had a friend in high school that was like that. Her name was Lydia. She was like weirdly attracted to teachers…it was so strange."

"Dr. Gaines wasn't that old." And now I remember why I never stay mad at Steph. She never means to be mean to me when she mocks me and tells me how stupid I am. In a strange way, I'm actually quite thankful for her. She keeps my head on straight. "He was like… 35 maybe 36. And he was light-skinned with a short haircut and he had pretty eyes…ooh, and he had a chin strap." I close my eyes and smile. "He was hot Steph… he was like… Dr. Avery but a little bit darker and a little bit more muscular. And he was always looking at me like he was gonna get me. He tried from day one. He was always like… flirting with me, keeping me after class for stupid shit. He grabbed my ass once but he swore it was because I had lint on my back. He flirted with me a lot and one day he even told me that he wanted me. So I just…" I sigh. "Lesson learned, though. I'm never sleeping with another married man. That was trashy."

"So you're not really attracted to older guys, it's more like you're in love with…basically all biracial boys except for Avery. You never stood a chance against Jason from the start because he's everything. Biracial, muscular, shaved head…everything you like. Got it." She starts to brush her own teeth.

"No, because I'm attracted to Karev and he's white." I tune my nose up. "…I dunno, I guess I don't have a type. I usually did only go after…" I start to smile but only because I'm nervous and what I'm about to say has potential to be disastrous. "Okay, when I was in high school, I really did love… dark skinned boys. Like your brother? I would've dated him in high school. Athletic, tall, handsome, dark skinned…that was my type. But in college, it switched to biracial boys… but I don't think it had anything to do with the color of their skin because I think Shane is hideous and I find Alex so sexy and he's a white guy. So I don't really know my type."

"…Glad to know my roommate isn't a racist." She giggles with a mouthful of toothpaste.

"If I were racist I wouldn't have moved in with you." I stand up from the toilet so I can finally go put some clothes on my ass.

"I think you just like guys with big junks."

"Oh, that's totally important." I open the bathroom door and shake my head. "If that was case, I totally wouldn't have even given Jason a chance. His shit was pathetic."

"I've been meaning to ask you if it was any good but I couldn't figure out the right time."

I bust out in serious, gut-busting laughter as I drop my towel and go over to my dresser. "It lasted a whole ten minutes! He's as big as my PINKY…when it's hard! And it's as skinny as a pencil! I'm so serious!" I hear her in the bathroom laughing right along with me. "He got so mad at me because I called him 'pencil-dick' a couple days ago. Steph, it was PATHETIC." I grab a pair of purple lace underwear from my top drawer and put them on.

"Wait, but I thought you said you got off." She walks into my room because my room is attached to the bathroom and she has to walk through my room in order to get to her room. "You told me you got off on it, so it couldn't have been that bad…"

"He's good with his mouth and that's all." I grab a bra from my dresser and strap it around my body. "If he never went down on me, I would've had to fake an orgasm to get him off me."

"Oh Jo, please tell me you didn't go down on him too…"

"HOW COULD I?! THERE'S NOTHING TO SUCK!" That REALLY makes her laugh. "…Okay, I'm not that big of a hoe. I don't just go around sucking dick for no reason." I search through my drawers for a suitable t-shirt and shorts to wear to Alex's. "But I'm not gonna sit here and act like I've never been down on a boy because I have…. I've gone down on one of my old boyfriends and it's something that we had to come to a mutual agreement to. And if I had gotten a good month in with Jason, I might've considered it…but there is literally NOTHING to suck. Steph, the sex was horrible. The head was great but the sex was awful…"

"…So wait… you only go down on boys that go down on you? So only one guy's ever given you head?" She standing there like I just told her that she's ugly. She seems insulted. But can I be truthful for a second? I really like talking to her about this stuff. I've never really had a girlfriend I could confide in the way I can confide in her. And I'm kind of scared to lose her but I just won't think about it. "Girl, you're missing out…"

"Oh hell no." I sit down on my bed to put on a pair of socks. "Not to sound like a hoe, but almost every guy I've slept with went down on me…almost every guy. I don't have a problem with that. That's my favorite part of sex, honestly. But… I'm not returning no favors so don't think you're special. Sorry, but I don't just go around putting anything in my mouth."

"Why do you always act like I'm gonna call you a hoe? I don't think you're a hoe. You've only been with seven guys. You're a little freak but a whore you are not. Stop thinking I'm gonna call you a hoe." She grabs my deodorant and pops the cap off. "But anyway, I had a boyfriend in college like Jason." She rolls deodorant under her armpits and puts it back. "He didn't have a small dick or anything, he just… he was awful in bed. But his head made up for everything. And that's one way we're alike. Head's my favorite part."

I start to put my t-shirt on but I stop for a second because now that I thought about how much I like Steph, something's been on my mind. "I don't mean to be off topic, but…" I bite my lip and take a breath. "…What if we have a fight? Me and you, I mean. What if… what if we fall out with each other. What if we fight and you kick me out and we never talk again? Then what?"

"Well first of all, can I borrow this? All my stuff's dirty." She holds up one of my t-shirts and I nod. "And second of all, we're never gonna fight. There's a lot of things you do that annoy me and a lot of things you do I don't agree with but I get why you do it and it doesn't bother me enough to the point where I'm gonna yell at you about it. And I wouldn't kick you out because I don't have a right to. This isn't just my place anymore. You pay rent and stuff so this is your place too. Why would I kick you out? And plus, you're my best friend. Why would I just never talk to you again? You know way too much about me for me to piss you off and never talk to you again. You can ruin my reputation with all the shit I've told you."

I giggle at that. "I know that was like…really off topic, but it kinda made me nervous to think about it. You're my best friend too but I'm kinda feeling like I have too much to lose with you. I hope we don't fight with each other." I shove my head into my t-shirt and stand up. "And if there's something you don't like about me, you can tell me. I just…" I look down at the ground because I just got really vulnerable all of a sudden. "I don't usually open up to people but you made it so easy. And I'm really bad with losing people I love, so… yeah."

"There's a lot of things you do that I don't like. But the things I don't like are outweighed by the things I find great." She wraps her arms around me in the most awkward hug I've ever been included in. "…You leave your hair in the shower and that pisses me off, so this is me telling you that if you insist on washing your hair every day, CLEAN IT OUT OF THE DAMN SHOWER." I laugh at that and whisper "okay" to her. "And you lock the door at all times which is annoying, especially if I just ran out to grab the mail…but I understand that you're used to locking doors… and you don't wash your clothes that much and that drives me crazy, but you're getting better with getting that it's OKAY to use all the laundry detergent because I'll get more. A lot of the things that I don't like about you are okay because I get that you grew up differently than I did. You're kind of a loner but you grew up alone and I grew up with a brother and a sister. I get why you do the things you do."

"…You leave your bras everywhere. And you shed your hair all over the sink…but that's it." I didn't realize how tight I was hugging her until just now.

"And your self-worth…that pisses me off too. You think you're such a shitty person when you're not." She moves my hair out of her way and gives me the nastiest, wettest, sloppiest kiss on my cheek. "Love you though!"

"Ew… don't you ever." I wipe my cheek off. "…Let me get dressed before I'm late." I grab a pair of shorts. "…And please believe that I'm not gonna make a fool out of myself over Alex's. I won't, okay? I know how to separate my romantic feelings from my friendship feelings."

…I think I might've just lied to her.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

Is it bad that I'm kind of excited to spend a little bit of time with Jo? I really am excited. She's my buddy. She's not closer to me than Mere and Cristina are just yet but I think with time, she can be my third girl best friend. I really haven't been that good of a friend to her lately but I hope that tonight will make up for it. I just don't have the time to spend with her that I had back when Izzie was gone for a little while. Because when Iz was gone, I didn't have to envelope myself in wedding planning, she wasn't banned from Peds and I could hang out with her during work. But she's still not allowed on Robbins' service and I don't have enough time during the day to seek her out so we can chat.

I flip the light switch to the living room, collapse down on the couch and kick my feet up on the coffee table. It's 9:45 and she's still not here. I wonder if she just decided to blow me off. I texted her two hours ago and told her my address and she said she'd be here at 9:30 with an exclamation point at the end of it. I hope she didn't blow me off. That would suck. I already ordered the pizza and I have a whole six-pack of beer in the fridge. I wouldn't mind drinking a six-pack and eating a large pizza all by myself, but I was really counting on her to help me pick out this goddamn song. Izzie's gonna skin my ass alive if I don't have this damn song by tomorrow.

I can't figure why she'd blow me off, though. She seemed so excited about it earlier and in her text message, it sounded like she was still gonna come. I don't know, maybe she's still mad at me for suggesting that she had feelings for me. In retrospect, that was an asshole move of me to just accuse her without having any solid proof. It's pretty clear that Jo and I are just really good friends and I honestly don't think that she'd ever throw a wrench in the equation just like that. It just made a lot of sense to me at the moment. How she got immediately upset whenever I mentioned meeting Izzie? The only reason behind that, that I could think of at the moment, was that she had some kind of feelings for me. That was pretty silly now that I think about it.

I grab the remote off the coffee table and turn the TV on. The news is on and right now, I realize how detached from reality I can get at times. I spend so much time in the hospital that I hardly ever know what's happening in real life if I don't catch a casual conversation in the OR or overhear the nurses' conversations. _Apparently it's gonna be 70 degrees tomorrow. _Just as I get more comfortable on the couch than I already am, the doorbell rings. I swipe my wallet off the coffee table to pay for the pizza and stand up. I unlock the door and yank it open. It's not the pizza guy. _Hey, she didn't blow me off._

"Sorry I'm late…" She has her arms folded across her chest and she's standing with all her weight on her left leg. I don't mean to, but I catch myself giving her a quick onceover from head to toe. She has on a black fitted t-shirt with orange letters that spell out "PRINCETON" across the chest and black and grey plaid pajama pants. Her hair is up in a high, side-swept ponytail that still manages to come down and rest on her shoulder. I've never really saw her in clothes other than her scrubs. "I was gonna wear shorts but it started raining as soon as I left the house so I ran back in to change into pants so…yeah. That made me late."

I step aside and let her in. I shut the door behind her. "I was beginning to think that you blew me off. You've been mad at me lately, so it made sense that you would." As soon as I shut the door, the bell rings again and I suck my teeth. "Go 'head in the living room…that's the pizza." I grab my wallet off the top of the mantle that I stuck it on and open it up. I pull the door back open and take a twenty out. Me and the pizza guy exchange the pizza and the money. "Keep the change." I mumble. I shut the door again and lock it up for the night.

"I don't know what I was expecting your house to look like, but I wasn't expecting it to look like this." She's standing in front of the couch like she doesn't know if she should sit down. I put the pizza down on the coffee table and run to the kitchen to grab the beer out of the fridge. "…Where's your wife?" She calls to me from the living room.

"Working the overnight." I grab the beer and walk with it back to the living room.

"I haven't been mad at you, by the way." She sits down on the couch and unties her shoelaces. "And I wouldn't just blow you off for no reason. I'm not that big of a bitch." I like how she just made herself at home. She tucks her legs underneath her body and leans back against the couch cushions. Some girls are all weird when they're over their friend's house for the first time. They act like they don't want to seem like a burden or whatever. I like how Jo's not afraid to just make herself comfortable. "I've just been in a crappy mood lately all around. Sorry for taking it out on you."

"It's cool. I've been a pretty crappy friend towards you lately, so let's just call it even." I sit down on the other end of the couch and open up the box of pizza. I grab a slice, roll it up and take a bite. She leans forward and grabs a piece too. "And what do you mean by 'You weren't expecting my house to look like this'? What, were you expecting me to live in a pigsty?"

"That's not what I was saying." She's eating her pizza real ladylike, taking tiny little bites and chewing with her mouth closed. I don't think it's an act, though. I think she really eats like that. "I wasn't expecting it to be so big. I know that it's only you and your fiancée that live here, I wasn't expecting to walk into a house that's built for a family of like…five." She jerks her head to the side to move her hair out of her way and takes another bite.

"It's actually a funny story about this house." I shove the last little bit of pizza in my mouth and chew hard. "It actually used to be Mere's house but during my intern year, she rented it out to Iz and George because she needed roommates. So eventually George and Torres moved together and Mere and Shepherd moved together, so now it's me and Iz's. It's really not that big. It's a two-bedroom and we're working on having kids."

"…Kids?" She's busy eating the crust of her pizza. She eats like a bird if you ask me. "How many do you and your wife plan on having?"

"We never really discussed how many. I kind of want a daughter." I shrug and grab a beer from the pack. "So I guess we'll keep going until I get my daughter."

"Most people say they don't care as long as their baby is healthy."

"I'm not most people." I twist the cap off my beer and take a sip. "Besides, the people that say they don't care are damn liars. Everybody has a preference of what they want…if they tell you they don't, just assume that they're lying. I'm not afraid to admit that I want a girl."

"…Or some people really just don't give a damn, but there's that too." She finishes her first slice of pizza and wipes her hands on her pants. I swear I love how casual she is. She's cool with anything and everything. "So what if your wife has a boy…and another boy, and another boy and another boy…. are you just gonna keep trying? Until you get a girl?"

"It shouldn't be that hard. I think we're gonna have twins the first time around…at least that's what Iz thinks is gonna happen."

"There's never really a way to predict that for certain, is there? I mean, isn't it like…ten times more likely that you'll have one baby before you assume that you'll have multiples?"

"Nah." I put down my beer and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. "Iz was sick a while back, so back when she was still a little bit healthy, we decided to go all scientific with it and freeze some of her eggs. I think we're gonna go with implanting three the first time around…and that's assuming that only two will take. If all three take, that's great. But usually only one or two take."

"She was sick?"

"Yeah… she had melanoma real bad. Went through the worst chemo out there, a bunch of surgeries… had a real grim prognosis. She's alright now but I thought I was gonna lose her for a minute there." I take another sip of my beer to avoid getting all choked up. I usually get real emotional when I'm talking about how sick Iz was and I don't want to ruin me and Jo's little hangout session by talking about my cancery fiancée so I won't. "She's fine now, though…"

"I'm so sorry." She takes her legs out from underneath her body and pulls her knees into her chest. Again, since I've never really seen her outside of her scrubs, I never really realized how tiny she was. She has long legs but she's not all that tall. She's actually pretty petite. She does have a decent rack and a pretty decent ass for her size though, and that's just me being a guy. I thought she measured up pretty well with Iz but she really doesn't. She's so much smaller in stature than Iz, but she does have curves…I'll give her that. "You're a really good man for that. I know a lot of jerks that would run."

"Yeah, I know jerks that would run too." I put my beer down again and pick up my laptop. "So anyway, let's get down to business." I fling open the laptop and push the power button. "I spent the other day googling songs but they all seemed really cheesy and generic, you know? I wanna pick the right song out. I don't want to seem like I didn't put any effort into it. I want the song to actually reflect how I feel. I don't want something stupid."

"That's a lot of pressure to put on one song." She scoots over so she can look at the laptop too. "Are you looking for a ballad? Or do you want something more…pop-ish?" She's sitting close to me but still at a decent distance. But I smell her. I think it's her hair that I smell or maybe she has perfume on, but either way it goes…she smells really good. "It's cute that you're taking the time out to actually listen to the lyrics though, that's nice." She reaches across me so she can go to YouTube. _Wow she smells good. _"Try…" She opens up another tab and goes to Google. She types in "love songs" like I did when I googled them and clicks on the first thing that pops up. "Ooh, that's a good one. You ever hear 'Wanted' by Hunter Hayes?"

"No?" I look at her through the corner of my eye. _Don't look at her. Because if I look at her, then I'll start to do what I did before and I just got through convincing myself that I don't find her attractive and if I look at her and realize that she's one of the most beautiful chicks that I've ever laid my eyes on I'll start to feel guilty and this night will be ruined. So I'm gonna stop looking at her. _"What are the lyrics like?"

She goes back to YouTube and pops the song into the search bar. "It's a cute little song. It's kind of country but the lyrics are cute…"

"First of all, no country. Second of all, I don't want cute. I want meaningful and truthful…"

"Just listen." She presses play on the song and some cheesy little country tune starts playing. I watch her mouth move along to the lyrics while it's playing and if I listen close enough, she's singing. "You know I'd fall apart without you… I don't know how you do what you do. 'Cause everything that don't make sense about me makes sense when I'm with you…" She's not American Idol worthy, but her singing voice is…I don't know, pretty? _Is there anything this girl does that isn't pretty? _"Come on Alex, you have to think that this song is cute." She takes a break from singing just to talk to me but goes right back to it. "I wanna wrap you up, wanna kiss your lips I wanna make you feel wanted. I wanna call you mine, wanna hold your hand forever and never let you forget…Baby I wanna make you feel wanted."

"…No. It's kind of making it seem like she's not mine yet but she is. You know? He's saying that he wants to let the girl know that she's wanted…but I don't have to want Izzie because I've already got her. So no. Next." I pause the song and go back to Google.

"You're so picky." She starts scrolling for me. "Here's a song, why don't you choose Mirrors? That's meaningful, it's not country and it's modern. How much more beautiful can you get than 'I don't want to lose you now. I'm looking right at the other half of me. The vacancy that sat in my heart is a space that now you hold.' That's beautiful… she'd totally love it."

"Stop being an asshole." I playfully tap her on her shoulder and keep looking through the list we Googled. "…Put it this way, if you were getting married, what song would you want your husband to play for you?"

"…No song at all, because I'm not getting married and even if I ever do, I'm not into the whole churchy-church wedding wear a white dress and walk me down the aisle. No thanks. Let's just go down to city hall make it official and take me to Cracker Barrel afterwards for the reception."

"….Wow. Are you sure you weren't born with a penis or something?" There's no way that she's a chick. She's ME in the female form. I totally agree with her. Maybe it's a street-kid thing that we have in common. "Seriously dude… I'm kind of doubting that you're a girl right now."

"I'm a lady, I swear. I live off… Midol and tampons. I have a vagina…. I'm a chick." She grabs the laptop off me and starts scrolling. "I just wouldn't waste my money on something that I don't really want. Plus, I don't even have a dad to walk me down the aisle…" Her eyebrows are wrinkled like she's thinking. "But if I were a bride….. I would hope that my groom would play something like Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden." She's not even looking at me anymore. All of her attention is on the computer. "But I'm into old school 80s and 90s love songs, so I'm not much help when it comes to the modern stuff."

"Truly Madly Deeply is good… I actually think I have that song on my—"

"You ever hear I'll Be? By… Edwin McCain? That's sweet, that's meaningful, it'll bring everybody to tears." She cuts me off like she's not interested in anything I have to say. "You have to pick one, Alex. So far I've got Kiss Me, All of Me, Collide, Lego House, I Swear, A Thousand Years, Chasing Cars…. Come on, pick one. This shouldn't be as hard as you're making it seem like. Everybody has a love song that relates to how they feel. Whether they're the child of darkness or the happiest person in the world, there's a song out there for them. Hell, even I have a song that puts me in my feelings. Stop acting like your heart is a big black hole and choose one."

"….Whoa… Jo Wilson…THE child of darkness has feelings?" I take the laptop off her and chuckle. She rolls her eyes at me. "What's your favorite long song then?"

"I didn't say I had a favorite, I said I have one that puts me in my feelings." When I take the laptop off her, she pulls her legs into her chest again and rests her chin on her kneecaps. "That's always the case though. There's literally a love song for everyone. Good mood, bad mood…it doesn't matter."

"Okay, so… you're going on a psychotic killing spree… what love song is playing in the background for you?"

She laughs. "…I dunno." For the first time in a little while, she looks at me. "How about You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette? That's a pretty angry one."

"You are twisted, girl. You are twisted." Okay, here's the Jo I love. Bubbly, giggly and really playful? Here she is. "Do you have anything inside of that head that isn't scary? Like the song that puts you in your feelings?"

"…Skinny Love. Not the one by Bon Iver, but the one by Birdy." She puts her legs down again and looks away from me. "Not because I'm anorexic or bulimic or anything like that… it just kind of makes me think about this guy." She licks her lips. I can tell by the look on her face that she really just opened up to me on a personal level. "…There's this part in the song where… it says…" She's looking straight ahead, not at me. " 'Now all your love is wasted and who the hell was I? I'm breaking at the britches at the end of all your lines…' " She clears her throat. "Like…at the end of every word he says, I kinda just…" I hear her sigh. "But everyone has a song like that, yeah?"

"…Is the guy Peckwell?"

"OH GOD, NO." Her voice just went from soft to a yell. "He's the one I'd kill while I'm on that psychotic killing spree..."

"Well is this guy at least good? Peckwell's a douche. Is this guy at least nice?"

"Mhm." She nods. "He's a good guy… He's really sweet and funny…and…he's…" She's still looking straight and not at me. I don't get why she doesn't just ditch Peckwell and get with the guy she's talking about. Jo's not ugly by any means. She can have any guy she wants. She's awesome… somebody would give her a chance. "I don't ever want to get married or start a family…but if I were to ever settle down with a guy, he'd be the one. He doesn't even know I exist, though. That's the crappy thing." She turns her head and now we're eye to eye again. "And he's not into me. He's into this… other girl. She's gorgeous, I don't blame him. But… you know."

"…Is the guy Ross? I can talk to him for you if you want me to." I nudge her because she's getting really upset and I don't want her to be. Jo's like…my adorable little buddy and I don't want her to cry or be upset. We're here to have fun. "And you can't just assume he doesn't know you exist. That's the thing with chicks… they think the guy's not into them but they have no idea. A good chunk of the time, us guys are just as into the girl as the girl is into us…but we want the girl to make the first move."

"It's not Shane. You don't know him… he works in another part of the hospital. And trust me… he's not into me. He's seeing someone and she's gorgeous. And they're perfect for each other and I just don't fit into the equation. I don't get people like him. I get people like…Jason."

"If you let me know the guy's name, I could try to talk to him. Unless it's Avery. He's so far up Ape's ass it's not funny. There's no talking him out of her and I'm not exactly in the business of wrecking a home."

"I don't find Dr. Avery attractive. But um… you don't need to know the guy's name. I'll tell you someday when it doesn't even matter anymore. I don't want you to go run your mouth about it. Then I'll have people thinking I'm the loser intern with a crush on the hot-shot…nurse. I'll tell you someday." She pulls her hair out of her ponytail and clears her throat for the second time tonight. Her hair topples down in wavy, loose curls around her chest. Iz used to have hair like that. "…You wanna play a game?" She shakes her hands through her hair to get it to fall right.

"…I don't have any games. I have a Wii but that's about it…" Funny how she just switched subjects like that.

"You don't need anything to play. Just yourself." She crosses her legs and turns to face me. "It's called Never Have I Ever." She holds her hands out. "Okay, so you just put your hands up…and you start saying things that you've NEVER done. And if I've done it, I gotta put one of my fingers down and vice versa. The person who loses all their fingers first loses. Wanna play?"

"…Yeah, sounds simple enough. You first." I hold my hands up.

"Okay…" She's smiling. For the first time tonight, she's GENUINELY smiling. "Never have I ever… Never have I ever gotten high."

"…Bull!" I put one of my fingers down because I HAVE gotten high before in my teenage years. "You're telling me you've never smoked or anything? You've never even been contact high?!"

"Nope." She shakes her head. "I was such a goody two-shoes in high school. And I was in the IVY LEAGUE. You get caught with weed on campus and you're ass out. I've never been high. Ever."

"You're full of shit." I shake my head at her. "…Never have I ever… had sex outside." I'm smiling too. We're really having a good time with each other. I'm really glad she's my friend. She makes me feel like I'm back in high school with all the laughing and joking around we do. I don't get to joke like this too much with Iz anymore. She puts one of her fingers down and my jaw drops. "You WHAT?!"

"…Well wait, does….. does in a car count as outside?" She laughs. "Because I've had sex in a car. That's not technically outside, but it's… not in a house."

"No a car doesn't count as outside."

"Well okay then." She keeps her finger down though.

"I said it DOESN'T count."

"…Yeah but I've had sex outdoors. It was at a bonfire…my boyfriend in college took me to a bonfire and we couldn't go do it in the car so we kinda just…yeah. We found a quiet place and it kind of happened." Her smile is so contagious. "…SO!" She claps her hands together. "Never have I ever…had a pregnancy scare. And that counts towards thinking you've gotten a girl pregnant."

I put my finger down. "I've had a few of those… all false alarms." I wink at her. "Never have I ever had sex with someone that was more than…8 years older than me."

"…Dammit." She mumbles and puts her finger down. "Stop tryna get me!"

"WAIT, YOU HAD SEX WITH A CREEPY OLD GUY?!"

"….He wasn't creepy or old, okay!" She's blushing so hard that it's adorable. "He was my…he was my microbio professor, okay? And he was hot!"

"No way."

"Yes… I told you, I really like sex okay? And I mean…. I dunno, I'm a freak. And he was hot and he was flirting with me and he wanted it…" She closes her eyes. "Are you judging me?"

"…Shit. I'm not judging you, I just realized that I lied." Yeah, I lied about that. My sexual experience with someone older happened so long ago that I forgot all about it but it happened and I can't lie about it. "I lost my virginity to my school nurse." I shrug.

"…WOW." She leans over and looks me dead in my face. "DO TELL."

"There's nothin' to tell." I reach forward and grab another beer. I offer it to her and she takes it so I just grab another. "I was…fifteen? Yep. And what can I say? I was a sexy fifteen year old. And I went to her office with a nosebleed. She was hittin' on me but she gave me tissues and sent me away. I spent the rest of the day thinkin' about her, so I went back to class and said I had a headache. I got sent back down and…bam." I take a chug of beer. "She was HOT too. Brunette, big boobs, nice ass… she was HOT. Even then, I had her screaming."

"Oh yeah right! You were fifteen, you probably didn't even know where to put it!" She takes a sip of her beer. "You were probably like that guy on Stepbrothers when he lost his virginity to the crazy chick in the bathroom. You were probably like…" She makes her voice all deep and mocks me. "Ew it's sticky and wet…wait, what's this white stuff!"

"Definitely not." I take another long, drowned out chug of beer. "Let's just say I'm blessed. I knew at a young age what to do and how to do it."

"Yep… we'll go with that." She rolls her eyes, smiles and shakes her head. "I just can't imagine you at FIFTEEN fucking the nurse and her not wondering if you knew what the hell you were doing. That's a bold step to lose your virginity to someone older… willingly, I mean because I guess that's not too unheard of."

"Oh whatever. Ask ANYONE…I'm blessed. And even if I wasn't, it's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it."

"Oh hell no, I beg to differ." She takes a quick sip of beer and puts it down. "If the size isn't right, it's not gonna get anything done. Trust me. This is coming from a girl. Any girl that says SIZE doesn't matter? She's just trying to make you feel better and she has a dildo, I'm just saying."

"…This is good. You can actually be useful to me." I have girl best friends like Mere and Cristina but I've never had a girl best friend like Jo. I've never been so open with a girl. She could come in handy for my own sex life. "As a girl….what's a girl's favorite position? MOST girl's favorite, anyway. For future reference."

"…Most of us like the regular…guy on top thing. I know a lot of girls whose favorite is missionary but I don't speak for all girls."

"Well what do you like? You're very useful to me, by the way. I'm finding out so much about girls from you."

"Me? I like head. Not giving, getting. I'll give but only if I'm getting…and I'll get but not give." She ties her hair back up in a ponytail. "But like I said, that's MOST girls not all… and I speak for myself. I know some girls that don't like head. My college roommate hated it but I thought the girl was nuts."

"Yeah….. I don't do that too often. I only do it to girls I really trust. I've done that to a handful of girls…maybe less than that." I feel like oral is something that's sacred, okay? I'm not gonna go down on a girl if I'm not in love with that girl. Now she can go down on me if she wants, that's on her. But I'm not going down on her. Nope. "I gotta know you're clean…"

"I totally agree. I've gone down on ONE guy in my lifetime and I'm 28. Now… I don't care if a guy goes down on me, whatever. I'm not gonna turn it down. I'm not gonna say 'NO YOU CAN'T EAT ME OUT'….what kind of person would I be? If a guy wants to give me head…That's his problem…but just don't expect me to return the favor." WHY are we so alike? She is ME. "But as a guy, what do most guys like?"

"I dunno…every guy is different." I pick up my beer and drink the rest of it. "Like me? I like it from behind but if you're talking to someone like Avery, he'll say he likes it when the girl's on top. We're all different."

"…Nope, see guys like to pull my hair and I'm not with that. And I like being on top too. I like being in control… and I've been told that I'm good at it, so." Her face is so red that her neck looks like it's five thousand shades lighter than her face. "…Okay, this is awkward…"

It is kind of getting out of hand. I'm against cheating but seriously, if I keep talking about something like this with someone that looks like Jo, I might be tempted into it. I don't get my own logic. I don't get how I can think of her as just one of the guys. We're sitting here drinking beer, talking about our sex lives and having a good time. She's one of the guys. I don't get how I can think of her as one of the guys, yet the things I would do to her are so dirty that it should be illegal. I'd never kiss her and mean it. I'd never cuddle with her in the morning. I wouldn't even think to ask her to be my girlfriend. But the THINGS I would DO to her and that BODY….god help me. And the fact that she said she's a squirter? Yeah, that's in the back of my mind as well.

She picks up her phone and holds it in front of her face. "…Holy shit, it's late. I should go…" She gets up off the couch. The thing is…she doesn't even sound like she's rushing. She sounds totally calm. "I have to go Alex, okay?" I grab my phone and check the time. It's not even that late… it's 12:45. She doesn't work tomorrow, so what's the rush? Why did she just get weird all of a sudden? "I'll see you later." She stomps her shoes on her feet.

"Wait Jo… what are you talking about? It's not even late, it's not even one in the morning yet." I get up too. "You don't have to leave. Are you tired or something? You can lay on the couch. I don't want you to leave yet. I thought we were having fun."

"We were, but… I just remembered that I have to…. my hair." She's making up shit now. "I have to get my haircut tomorrow morning and…. I just have to go."

"…It's Jason, isn't it? He wants you home by a certain time and you're late…."

"IT'S NOT. GOD. It's none of your business…. I just want to go home."

"Alright, fine. But you didn't drive. Didn't Stephanie bring you? At least let me drive you home if you're so dead set on leaving right now."

"Leave me alone. Leave me alone, Alex. Okay? Sometimes you just need to leave me alone. Because I get all confused and sometimes I need to be left alone. I want you to leave me alone right now. Because I don't want to ruin this. Let me go home… I….I AM having fun…which is why I need to go."

"That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense to me. It doesn't have to make sense to you, it makes sense to me."

"But Jo…"

"LEAVE. ME. ALONE."

"…What if we don't talk about anything? What if we don't talk about sex? Will you stay? What if we go back to looking at songs?"

"…You're not gonna leave me alone, are you?"

"Probably not. Because the last time you acted like this and you got all weird and mad at me, I didn't hear from you for a couple days. And like it or not, you're one of my best friends…so stay."

"Fine." She sits back down. I'm kind of glad that we stopped talking about that. It was getting to be a little steamy and I kept picturing her naked, not gonna lie. I'm not even sex-deprived anymore, I'm just a man. And a girl like Jo is one you'd find in your dreams. One that likes sex just as much as I do? One that's just as freaky as I am? Maybe that's why we clash so much because we ARE so much alike. I don't know… She clears her throat and crosses her legs. "…Hand me your laptop."


	15. Lost

I clear my throat and cross my legs. "…Hand me your laptop." I don't know what I'm going to do with the laptop but I know that it'll be a quick distractor. I just need him to leave me alone and it doesn't seem like he's going to do that, so as long as he's not gonna do that, I have to look at something else other than him. I just don't get it with him. I don't get how when we talk…I feel it. I feel like I'm talking to my soul mate when we talk. I feel so much tension between us, like it's just building up and building up inside me and it's going to explode and I'M going to explode in a big pile of feelings for him. How does he not feel that? How is this so one sided?

How is it that when I see him, I see… my future, if that makes any sense at all? I see more than his shaggy, wavy light brown hair. I see more than his perfect jawline and his perfect lips. I see more than his chiseled body and his muscles. When I look at him, I see someone that's just as crappy as me. I see someone that I should be with, someone that I WANT to be with. I see the person that I want to see when I close my eyes at night and open them up the next morning; the person that I would undoubtedly change my mind about. Him down on one knee in a few years and me, teary-eyed and happy to say yes…that's what I see. I'd be happy with him and I can see that every time I look at him. How is it that I feel something so powerful when I'm in his presence but he doesn't feel anything at all?

And I can feel myself breaking, that's the bad part. I can feel myself tearing at the seams and wanting so badly to stand up on this couch and scream at him to just leave me the hell alone because this is torture. Stephanie was right, of course. This is nothing but cruel, inhumane, unethical torture to me. For me to have to sit here and fake this smile while he talks to me about his wedding…for me to have to sit here and act like I'm not completely turned on by the conversation we just had…for me to ignore the fact that I feel like I have a magnet in my mouth and it's drawn to a magnet in his mouth. But like I said before, I'm freakishly good at hiding things.

Because I don't know what else to do and I don't want to torture myself any longer, I grab my cell phone and go straight to Stephanie's contact. She told me that she wouldn't drink at Joe's so that she'd be okay to drive and come get me, but when she comes to get me, I'm supposed to drop her off over Leah and Heather's and take the car home because she _does _want to drink over their house. I wasn't expected to come home from Alex's this early though so I might just go over to Leah and Heather's too. I need to get drunk. No…matter of fact, I DESERVE to get drunk. I sat in a room for hours with someone that I'm dying to be with and I haven't even said so much as a word to him about how I feel. I think I deserve a drink or two or three or ten.

"H'lo?" Steph answers her phone on the third ring. I hear music playing loudly in the background so yeah…they must still be at Joe's. I'm starting to wish that I had blown Alex off. I mean, I know that if I had blown him off and went out with Steph and the others, I would be sitting at the bar right now wondering if I had missed out on an opportunity to spend alone time with him. I would be sitting there miserable thinking that I might've just missed the chance to grow closer and maybe get him to develop something more than friendly feelings for me. I know I'd be miserable if I had ditched him but at this point, I don't think that being miserable would be anything compared to how I'm feeling right now. I feel like my heart isn't even in my chest anymore. I feel so empty.

"Are you guys done at Joe's yet? Because I'm ready to leave…" As soon as I say that last part, Alex's eyes flicker over to me for a quick moment before they settle back on the beer he's holding in his lap. I'm learning quickly how to read his emotions and tell what his little looks, gasps, grunts and nods mean…and I think this particular look means that he's upset or disappointed or both. Okay, maybe I could've gone inside the bathroom and called Steph to avoid offending him but I didn't. I just really want to get out of here. This is hurting me way too much.

"Actually yeah… we were waiting for you to call." I'm not sure, but I think I just heard Leah scream "HI JO" in the background… but on the off chance that my ears just failed me, I won't tell Steph to tell her I said hi back. "We're waiting for Shane to get his food…he got it to go so it shouldn't be that long. I'll be by to grab you in a little."

"Okay just text me when you're outside." After we exchange our goodbyes, I hang up the phone. I'm so ready to leave that I swear to god I would've walked home in the pouring down rain. If Alex would've let me walk home, I would've. I put my phone back down on the couch cushion beside me and pretend to be really interested in the home screen of his laptop just to avoid looking at him. His screen boasts a picture of him and his fiancée…and I won't even lie, it's perfect. She's wearing a red baseball cap, sitting between his legs and smiling with her eyes closed at the fact that he's behind her, leaning forward, kissing her on the cheek. In all honesty? I don't compare to her, I never could compare to her and I probably never will. She's perfect for him and they look perfect together.

"Can you at least let me know what I did?" No, I was wrong. That look didn't mean disappointment. Clearly it meant that he's pissed off because the tone of his voice doesn't suggest otherwise. He sounds really frustrated and angry with me. "If you're gonna spend the time acting like I just pissed in your cereal, you can at least let me know what I did. I'm getting really sick of it. Every time I think we're having a good time and you're okay one minute, the next minute you freak out and start acting like I killed a puppy. What is it with you?"

"You didn't do anything." I shut his laptop because tears are starting to sting my eyes while I'm steady looking at this goddamn picture of him and his perfect little lover. I put the laptop on the coffee table and run my hand through my hair. "You didn't do anything…alright?"

"Then why the hell are you trying to go home? You're killing me." From the corner of my eye, I see him gritting his teeth. _Hey, that's one more way we're alike. I grit my teeth when I'm irritated too. _"I'm not gonna keep apologizing to you for being a shitty friend. I acknowledged it…I apologized for it…I'm not going to keep saying sorry…especially when I didn't do anything. I'm trying here. You're not that easy to be friends with…"

"I'M not that easy to be friends with?" I'm going to cry in a minute and I really don't want to. I grab a handful of my hair and stare at my split ends so he won't be able to see my face if a tear does happen to fall. "Whatever, Alex… I told you that you didn't do anything and I told you that you aren't a shitty friend…if you feel guilty that's not on me."

"It's just weird how you're claiming that I didn't do anything yet you're acting like I did. We were talking and you said that our talk was awkward and that's fine…we don't have to talk like that anymore. But can you at least give me a damn chance before you decide to go all mute on me like that?" He stressfully combs his fingers through his hair and sighs. "Sometimes I forget that you're not one of the guys…you know? We talk about so many things and it's easy to talk to you about it and I forget that you're not one of the guys…so if I made you uncomfortable by talkin' about sex, my bad."

God he's pissing me off. What part of YOU DID NOTHING WRONG doesn't he understand? Do I have to spell it out for him? And the sex talk wasn't even awkward, that's the thing. I just can't talk like that with somebody that I want. I don't find talking about sex awkward at all so that's not the issue. Still, he doesn't seem to get that I'm not mad at him and that's irritating me. I clench my teeth shut and talk to him through them. "It wasn't. Even. That." I roll my eyes and sigh. "Just fucking drop it… god." I whisper.

"Fine. I'm dropping it." He stands up from the couch and stretches. "You want another beer until you leave?" I shake my head. I don't think I'm going to be able to hold back my tears any longer so I put my hands down on the couch cushions and help myself up onto my feet. I stomp my feet into my shoes again. "Your ride here?" I shake my head again. "Then where the hell are you going?"

"She texted me and said she's right around the corner so I'm just gonna…" I lie and my voice cracks at the end of that. I swallow a lump in my throat and breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. "I'm gonna go outside and wait. I'll see you on Thursday at work."

"Alright." He mumbles and puts down the pizza box that he just picked up in an effort to start cleaning up. "Can I have like… a high five or a handshake goodbye? Or are you still completely pissed at me?"

"I told you I wasn't mad. It's not a matter of me being mad at you, Alex. I'm not mad. I just…" I lick my lips and purse them into a line, thinking of how I should phrase this. "I want to do something. And I've…I've wanted to do this for like…nearly two weeks now. NEARLY two weeks…" I'm roughly estimating in my head how long it's been since the almost kiss. It's been longer than a week but not exactly two weeks. "And I can't do it. And I'm afraid that if I stay here I'm just gonna keep wanting to do it and if I keep wanting to do it I don't know how long I'm going to be able to NOT do it. So I have to leave. I'm not mad at you or anything. I swear I'm not. I just can't be here anymore with the way I'm feeling."

"Whatever." He scratches his head and stretches his arms out again. "…Why don't you just do it?" He shrugs one shoulder, shakes his head and throws his hands up. "Get it over with."

"…I can't." I squint my eyes and bite my lip. "Do you listen to me at all when I talk? Or does it just go in one ear and out the other? I told you that I can't do it…"

"I'm giving you permission to do it, though."

"You can't just give me permission if you don't know what it is."

"But I know what it is…and I'm giving you permission to do it." He looks down at the ground with guilt written clear across his face. He can't possibly know what it is that I'm talking about. If he knew, he wouldn't tell me to do it. It's not something that I can just get away with doing without suffering the repercussions of doing it. If I could just do it and get away with doing it, I would. But I can't and he can't just give me permission to do it. I bet my life that he doesn't know what it is that I'm talking about. "…Are you gonna do it or not?"

"…No." I shake my head. "You don't know what it is that you're giving me permission for and I… I don't want to do it just because I'm upset about it and you're letting me do it out of pity. I want…. I want to do it and know that it wasn't something one sided. I want you to want it just as bad as I do." I can't believe I'm standing here talking to him with tears in my eyes, refusing to do what I want to do even though I have his permission. I don't think I'd quite like myself much if I did it now, knowing that the only reason I get to do it is because he feels sorry for me.

"I know what it is, Jo. I know what it is." He takes a step closer to me. I look down at the ground to get an idea of our proximity. He's no more than a foot away from me. "And what if I said that I don't care? What if I said that it's been on my mind for a week and two days too… would that change your answer?" I look down at the ground, quiet. "Are you gonna kiss me or not?"

Closing the space between us, I take a step closer to him and like he actually wants to do this too, he steps towards me as well. I stand up on my tiptoes and he leans his head down to make it easier for me. He tilts his head to one side and I tilt mine to the other so we don't bump noses. _Oh god… I didn't think it was possible to want someone this much. _Just like the first time, I can feel his breath against my top lip. I close my eyes and keep my face right where it's at, not wanting to spoil this moment. But after I remain idle for like five seconds, I feel his mouth against mine. _Oh my god his lips are so soft… oh my god, oh my god. _I feel every single emotion in this one instant. I'm happy…so happy. I'm sad…so very sad. And I'm angry. I'm angry because he's getting married and I want him and I can't have him and it's just not far. It's not fair…it's not fair…it's not fair.

We're only standing with our lips together at the moment and I don't care… I don't care if this is all I do. I don't care if this is all we ever do. I'm exploding because this is what I've been longing for. But to further my delight, he opens his mouth which in turn, makes me open mine. His tongue meets mine finally and even his TONGUE is soft. I don't know what to do with my hands… I don't know what to do with them, so I put them on his back. He puts his hands around my waist and pushes his face harder into mine to deepen the kiss. I bring my hands up to the back of his head and curl my fingers through his hair. _This may be my only moment… take advantage. _Hungrily, I push back against him with the same intensity and I massage his tongue with my own. His breath tastes like hard beer…and it's so pleasant.

He pulls away first, breaking the kiss so we can breathe. We're both breathing heavy trying to catch our breath. Both of us open our eyes at the same time. I look at him and I have tears in my eyes and he looks like he just did something he knows he's gonna regret. Softly, he presses his lips to mine in a quick peck. "…You gonna tell me that isn't what you wanted?" He whispers, his voice mimicking a low, voracious growl. I lick my lip so I can have all of him…every speck of his spit, every bit of his lips…inside my mouth. I shake my head to answer his question…and I can't help myself, so I go right back to kissing him.

He cups his hands around my waist and aggressively pushes me back towards the couch. Our feet tangle up in each other's and we both stumble backwards because we don't want to take the time to stop kissing long enough to walk without our lips touching. I collapse backwards and fall on the couch but he doesn't let me hit the couch in a way that'll hurt. He has his arms around my body like I'm weightless to him. Gently, he rests his weight atop of me and I shift and allow him too. _We're not gonna have sex…we're not. I won't allow myself to have sex with him. I'm celibate, remember? _I put my hand flat against his chest and push him hard off me. _That doesn't mean I'm going to give this up, though. I'm not ready to give this up. But no sex._

He keeps his hands on my waist and allows me to switch our positions. I'm actually amazing myself at how long I'm lasting with this kiss. I need to breathe and I know I need to breathe but I'm scared. What if I pull away from him just to catch my breath and he realizes in that moment that what we're doing is horrible and what we're doing is wrong and I don't want him to stop kissing me when he realizes that. I never want to stop kissing him. I put my hand on his face to keep him against my lips and adjust my position so that my legs are on either side of his body and I'm straddling him.

He slides his hands underneath my shirt and rests them against my bare back. He's touching me so gingerly that I'm starting to wonder if he thinks he's gonna break me. His fingertips are just barely grazing my spine, stopping at my bra and tracing themselves back down to the waistband of my pants. His hands repeat that motion for about five more times while mine are tangled all in his hair. I'm trying to restrain myself from pulling his hair too much but I can't. I want him in more ways than this kissing right now and I won't allow myself to have him because I don't want to do anything that's more wrong than what we're already doing…pulling his hair helps my frustration.

I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my elbows in the blades of his shoulders. I tilt my head further to the side so we can kiss deeper and when I do that, he shoves his tongue further into my mouth. Slowly I stroke my fingers through his hair, caressing his scalp and he takes his hands from underneath my shirt and puts them back on my hips. He digs his palms into my hips and pushes me down so that I'm really tightly against his body and I feel something hard against the inside part of my thigh. I think I know what that something is but I don't want to jump to any conclusions. I pull away from his mouth for one second and put my head down to see if what he's holding me against is what I think it is…and it is. I'm so hypnotized by the thoughts that are coming along with it that I can't even concentrate long enough to start kissing him again; I'm just staring at it.

I can make out the outline of the shape of it through his sweatpants. _The things I could do with that. I could do so, so, so many sinful things with that. And I swear I'd make it worth his while. _Breaking my thoughts, he puts his hand underneath my chin and eagerly draws my lips back to his. He sucks on my bottom lip for a second before he starts full blown making out with me again. One of his arms is wrapped around my waist and the other one is resting at his side. I don't even want to talk about what's going on in my underwear right now. I just want to know how he feels about it. Clearly he's enjoying it if he's as hard as I feel that he is…trust me, he's hard as a rock. But that's just a natural reaction for him being a guy.

That says nothing about how he emotionally feels…

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

At this point, I think it's safe to say that I'm in deep shit. I mean I don't think Jo would tell Iz what's going on and I DAMN sure won't tell her, so she probably won't find out about it but still. I'm tongue-deep in Jo's mouth, she's on my lap and I'm enjoying this more than I'm willing to freely admit. I gotta say that I didn't imagine to be this far into it, though. I was expecting this to happen, be done and I could move on with my life but nope…it's making me think.

I could see it in her eyes that something was bothering her. She wanted to leave for god's sake. And she took it upon herself to tell me that she'd been wanting to do SOMETHING for a while and I just connected the dots. She wanted to kiss me and somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I wanted to kiss her too. I think I wanted to know what it'd be like. I think I wanted to know what I'd be missing out on. Now I'm starting to feel all shitty because I don't want her to think that this is anything more than just a kiss because it's not. I can't let this be more than a kiss. I can't let myself get emotionally attached and I can't allow her to think that just because I'm kissing her now it means that we can go around kissing all the time because that's not the case.

I feel bad for letting her kiss me. I feel bad for kissing her back. I feel bad for wanting her to kiss me and I feel even worse about the fact that it's taking everything in me not to lie her down on this couch and go to work with her. I don't know very many men that would be able to resist her, first of all. It's no internal secret that I think she's beyond hot. She's one of the hottest chicks I've ever came across. But I didn't want to go back to my old ways and I think that's what I've done. I don't even know right now. Is this considered cheating? Even though I wanted this, I also wanted her to initiate the kiss because I THOUGHT that I'd at least feel better about kissing her if it wasn't completely my idea to kiss. I was wrong, by the way.

She's a damn good kisser anyway. She knows just how to let me be in control but also be dominant at the same time and it's quite sexy. I stuff my hands back up her shirt because if I don't put them there then I'll probably end up touching her ass or something worse. Did I mention how soft the skin on her back is? All of her skin is babyishly soft but the skin on her back is like buttermilk. She pulls out of the kiss for a second to move her hair out of the way then goes back to it. We've been at this for like ten minutes now and I haven't even copped a feel yet. I'm proud of myself for that. Even though I'm ashamed for a lot of things I've done tonight, I'm at least proud of that.

Outside, I hear the soft beep of a horn and I'm assuming that's her ride. I kind of don't want her to go. I kind of wish I had at least another hour with her. And then on the other side, I want her to get off my lap right now and get out. I don't know if I can be her friend anymore after this. I really like her and she's a really good friend…but I think this is where I draw the line. We can't be friends. She unhurriedly pulls her face back from mine to stop the kiss for good this time. I reach up and move her hair out of her face. I didn't even think about that. It was out of instinct, like I do it every day. With her legs still straddling me and her hands still around my neck, she looks at me and I look back into her eyes. And I can tell that these are two different emotions between us. I can tell that she just enjoyed the hell out of herself. She's happy. I made her happy. But I'm not. I just fucked up big time.

I can't be her friend anymore. I can't have someone like her around me any longer. I made a commitment to Izzie and I don't want to break that. I know for a fact that I might've just sealed the deal on me and Jo's friendship and I can kiss it goodbye now, but that's a decision I have to make. I have a fiancée and I have a life waiting for me. I can't give that up for an intern.

"…I'll see on Thursday?" Her voice is so soft and mellifluous, like music. She starts to move her legs to get off me but she's moving really slow. I have half a mind to move her myself but I don't want to upset her. I can feel that I'm going to end up being rude to her and I don't want to, but there's no nice way to say that I can't be her friend because shit like this can't keep happening and despite how many times she lies to my face about it, she clearly has feelings for me. "…Will I?" She asks and all I can think about is what color her eyes are. They're clearly brown but the lightest and brightest brown I've ever seen. She's gorgeous and maybe…MAYBE if I wasn't with Iz…

"…Probably not, Jo." I run my hand through my hair and sigh. I'm going to try to be as nice as possible.

"…You don't work on Thursday?" She stands up and fixes herself. "So then I'll see you Saturday. Unless you want to hang out again before that."

"I work on Thursday but…" I stand up as well and put my hand on her shoulder. As gently as I can, I push her and lead her to the door. "This can't keep happening. I'm sorry that it happened in the first place but it did happen and I take full responsibility for it happening but it really can't keep happening, Jo. You know that."

"…Right." She licks her lips, smiles and puts her head down. "Um… we can hang out on Friday if you're not too busy. I… I'm sure Steph wouldn't mind if you came over for a couple hours and I get paid on Friday so—"

I hate to be like this, I really do. But I interrupt her. "No, Jo. We can't hang out. We can't be friends anymore. That's what I meant." Her face goes sullen. "I'm sorry. Actually, I let this go on way longer than it ever should have and I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to hurt you, but…"

"Wait." She puts her hand up and shakes her head. Her eyes are glistening with tears. God, I didn't mean to do this. I screwed up so bad this time. I'm ALWAYS screwing up. I was born screwing up. But I screwed up BAD this time. "You told me to." Her jaw is trembling. "You gave me all that shit about how you wanted to kiss me too and you told me to and you said it was okay and you… you…. don't wanna be friends now?"

"I'm getting married…"

"Yeah, no shit." She mutters and looks away from me like she can't even stand looking at me. "Alex, I…. I don't want to…not be your friend. I don't want that to happen…"

"But it has to happen." I mumble and open the door. "Look, I'll see you around Wilson… and thanks for helping me tonight."

"…So this is it?"

"It has to be."

"You tell me to kiss you then you tell me that you made a mistake by kissing me back…" I see a tear streak down her cheek. I feel like shit. "Don't ever talk to me again." She pushes past me and stops for a second. "Oh wait… I forgot that's what you want." Her face is so red and so wet with tears. I feel like crap, man. I feel like the biggest piece of crap. "Have a nice…life or whatever." And with that, she leaves.

And with that, I lost a friend.


	16. Tired of Lying

**A/N:**So this chapter is pretty short. I'm sorry about the length but I just didn't want to go into another day because I felt like it would be rushed and if I went into another day in this chapter, it would make the chapter WAY too long because I have a whole bunch of material to cover in the next day I go on to. So yeah, sorry about the length.

Also, there is some content in this chapter that may strike a nerve for some people and I apologize beforehand if I offend anyone, but please believe that everything stated is essential to the story. The things said in this chapter in no way, shape or form reflect on my own personal beliefs and it is not my intention to offend anyone. It is just crucial that I explain these things in such a way that make it believable to Jo as my character. So I wholeheartedly apologize if anyone takes offense to what is said.

-flawlesspeasant

* * *

><p>"Are you sure they won't mind?" Sniveling, I use the backside of my hand to wipe my face off. I'm not sure how but Steph convinced me to come to Heather and Leah's to have a drink with her. I was going to go anyway back before I spent ten minutes making out with Alex but after the rejection he just put me through, all I want to do is go home and lie down. I didn't want to but the second I got in the car with Steph, I broke down. I broke DOWN and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. I was crying so hard that I gagged myself and I almost threw up. I haven't cried that hard since I got arrested last year. I couldn't even get a handle on myself. Steph had to pull the car over at the end of Alex's driveway to console me and even that didn't work. I thought I was okay to make it without crying until I got home to do it in the privacy of my bedroom but the second I got into the car, I lost it.<p>

I just don't understand. I don't believe in God and I haven't believed in God since I was sixteen years old… but if there IS a God, is he really that cruel? I stopped believing in God when the son of a bitch made it possible for a little girl to be beaten and raped the way he let me. Maybe I'm just a tough critic but I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now. I was a little girl and even at sixteen, I still had my innocence. I didn't do anything that I recall that could've deserved for him to let that happen to me. I swear I was a golden child. I did my homework, I made straight As, I was in the gifted program at school, I didn't go out and get high and drink like most teenagers my age. I never sass-mouthed my foster parents, I never even so much as told them "no". I was a picture perfect child and I really tried to be because when you get kicked out of so many foster homes, you start to learn how to behave yourself so you can hopefully stay and when you're a teenaged kid in foster care, they usually look for any reason to throw you out…so I tried HARD to stay.

I was sixteen and I hadn't even been kissed yet! Yet…someone higher than me like "God" decided that I could wake up one morning and get myself a bowl of cereal because the person in the house that I knew would protect me was gone at work and she didn't make me the breakfast she usually made me on the weekends. She wasn't there and to this day, I believe if she had been, I would've been okay. But no. I sat at that table to eat my makeshift breakfast and he came downstairs. And he sat down and he ate a bowl of cereal with me. And he asked me if I was excited for school to start. And I said yes. And he asked me if I had planned on getting a boyfriend in my sophomore year. And I told him I wasn't interested in boys, I was interested in school. And he asked me if I liked girls. And I said I didn't think I did, because at that point, I was still unsure of my sexuality. I found boys attractive but not to the point that I would lie down and have sex with them. I had never seen a girl that I found attractive at that point but I still didn't want to completely rule out the possibility of being bisexual.

He asked me if I was a virgin and I told him that I was, because I was. I was still innocent then. And he said that the reason why I was unsure of my sexuality was because I had never had sex before. And I got up because the conversation was making me uncomfortable and I had a copy of The Great Gatsby that I really wanted to start reading. I went to my room and lay in my bed and started to read because I had nothing else better to do. He came inside and sat down on the bed and he took my book off me and put it on my nightstand. And he told me that he didn't want "gay daughter" so he was gonna "make me sure of myself." I said "okay" because I didn't know what he meant. But he started kissing me on my lips and I got the picture and I started to cry because I trusted him, you know? I trusted that he wouldn't have done anything like that and I felt really safe with them. They were the longest foster family that I had been with. He pushed me down on the bed and held my hands to the side while he kissed me and I screamed. To this day, I still don't know how I screamed like that. I've never heard myself scream like that since.

When he took his hands away from my hands, he forced all his weight on me so I couldn't get up. It was pretty easy for him; I was a pretty skinny kid. I probably only weighed about 100 pounds, no more than that. And he had to have been about 300 pounds. I remember screaming and praying to God that he wouldn't do this to me but he did…and he did it to me for nearly two hours. And I told him that I was gonna tell but he hit me and he kept hitting me and he told me that he was gonna do it again and again and again until HE got tired of it. And I left and I took that car of mine and I never saw him again.

My point is that there is no such thing as a God and even if he did exist, he's a selfish bastard that likes to watch little girls get raped by their foster fathers, so it's not a surprise to me that he likes to watch me get my fucking heart broken into tiny pieces by the same selfish fucker over and over again. I refuse to believe that somebody so "holy" could be so cruel so it's comforting to me to think that he doesn't even exist. Call me crazy but since I don't believe in God, I often find myself praying to science…hehe. I thought that was funny.

"I told them you were coming to chill with us. Leah said she didn't mind." Steph hands me more tissues. "Just calm down, okay? You're gonna have fun with us and you'll forget all about him. He's a jackass…" She throws the gearshift in park and turns to me. "No more crying over him. Shake him off and have fun for a couple of hours. It'll make you feel better." She pulls her sleeve down and covers her hand with it. She starts wiping my face off for me and I politely push her away. I appreciate the gesture but I don't need her help. I put my hands over my face and rub my eyes hard. "You cool now?"

"Mhm." I nod, sniff and clear my throat. I open up the car door and step out of it. _This is Heather and Leah's place? Wow… I could only dream of living in a place like this. _I look at the exterior of the house in its entirety. It's not very big but it's decent sized for two people to be living in it. It's about two stories high and it's all made out of brick. It looks like it might have been a duplex at one point but I'm not sure. I fold my arms across my chest and walk up the front steps, following Steph. I think Steph must've told them that we were outside or coming or something because she doesn't even ring the doorbell, she just opens up the front door and walks right inside and I instinctively follow her.

As soon as I step inside the house, my ears are filled with the sound of loud music and the floor is shaking from the bass of the song that's playing. I follow Steph through a narrow hallway back towards a living room. It smells like Clorox bleach in the house. It's not necessarily a bad smell. The house isn't dirty, either. There's a pile of clothes sitting the steps and shoes strung from one end of the hallway to the other but that's it. Oh, and they could stand to run a vacuum cleaner across the carpet but again, I'm not judging. Heather's sitting on the couch with a red cup in her hand and her nose buried in her phone. Leah's ass is sticking out of a cabinet while she's rummaging through it looking for something. Shane's sitting in a recliner with a Styrofoam container in his lap. It looks like he's eating chicken wings or some other kind of meat with messy sauce on it. If they're the wings that came from Joe's then they're amazing and when he's not looking, I might steal one.

"Jo!" Heather sounds really excited to see me which makes me smile because…well, after getting flat out rejected, it's nice to have somebody that actually appreciates my presence. "You want a cup?" She puts her phone and her cup down on the coffee table in front of their couch and grabs the bottle of liquor from the side of the couch. I nod my head. I don't even care what it is that she's trying to get me to drink. I just need to be drunk. "You want pineapple juice or orange juice for a chaser?"

"What is it?" I take the bottle of rum off her to look at it. It's coconut flavored Calico Jack. "…Gimme the pineapple juice." I take it off her and grab a cup. I pour the pineapple juice so the cup is half full and fill the other half with rum. I swish my cup around to mix it as best as I can without a spoon and take a long, drowned out, much needed sip. It's starting to burn my stomach with how much I chugged down, but whatever. I'm trying to be pissy drunk by the end of the night.

"Damn Jo… take it to the head why don't you?" Steph sits down on the couch, taking the seat I planned to sit in. I'll sit on the floor for all I care though. I put my half-drunken cup down on the table and sit down with my back against the couch. I pull my knees into my chest and dust off the rest of my first cup. "Jo I'm serious… chill out. I don't feel like spending my night in the emergency room with you."

"I know my limit, Steph." I mumble and fill my cup back up with more rum this time than pineapple juice. "I'm trying to get so fucked up that I don't remember tonight." I take her advice and sip my current cup this time instead of chugging it like I did the first one.

"I don't think I ever met someone that INTENTIONALLY got so fucked up that they don't remember the night before." Leah finally takes her head out of the cabinet she was rummaging through with a deck of cards in her hand. "Poker?"

"Deal me in." Shane sucks some of whatever he was eating off his fingers and slides out of the chair he was just sitting in and onto the floor. I scoot over towards the coffee table because that seems to be where we're going to play at. Heather sits beside me and Steph sits on the other side of me. Leah sits across the table next to Shane and starts shuffling the cards. I used to be really good at poker but I haven't played since med school. I'm not sure if I'm good anymore. See, us Harvard kids didn't have many ways to have fun on campus because if we did the wrong thing, we'd get kicked out in a heartbeat. So the most honest way for us to have fun was to sit around in my friend Kaitlyn's room and play a big ass game of poker. "What made you decide to come out and hang with the big kids?" Shane asks me with a playful yet douchebaggish tone in his voice.

"I dunno." I shrug my shoulders and lie to him because I'm not drunk enough to have forgotten about the fact that I just hardcore made out with the man of my dreams and got hardcore rejected at the same time. I don't feel like talking about Alex. "What are we betting?" I start gathering my cards up as Leah deals them out. "I'm broke as hell so we can't bet money. We can bet like… swap monkey or something." I take a sip of my drink.

"We're all broke as hell. We're interns." Leah keeps on dealing out the cards. "But I swear this paycheck on Friday is about to be nice. I put in like 80 hours." She exhausts the cards we're supposed to have and sits flat on her ass. Is it bad that I don't even know what I'm going to do with my first paycheck? Apparently Steph's dad paid all the bills for the month before she even asked me to move in, so nothing needs paid. We're interns so we don't get paid much, but I think I have at least a thousand bucks coming to me on Friday, AFTER they take out taxes. That may seem like a lot of money and it is…especially for me. And the only reason I'll be able to have all my money this month is because I don't have to pay anything this month. So what am I gonna do with the money? I should probably just save it or something.

"Why don't we just play strip poker? It's cheap." Steph suggests in all seriousness. I played strip poker once in my life and I thought it was boring. Maybe I thought it was boring because I didn't even have to strip. I think (if I remember correctly) the concept of the game is to take off some of your clothes every time you lose a round. I never lost so I didn't have to strip…and then it was just me sitting around with a bunch of butt-naked people and it was awkward.

"No thanks." I put my cards down. "I'd rather just watch if you guys are gonna do all that." They're all looking at me like they're annoyed. "…Well I never lose in poker and if I don't lose then I won't strip and it'll be weird! Plus… I don't know if I'm cool with Shane being the only dude here." And I'm serious about that. He's the only boy and I'm not sure if I' too keen on him seeing me naked if I do happen to lose. I'm cool with Steph seeing me naked, I'm cool with Leah and Heather seeing me naked because they have all the same parts as me…but Shane? I don't know.

"You really know how to suck the fun out of something." Heather mumbles.

"…I just…" I sigh and pick my cards back up. "Okay. I'll play." I lean across the table just slightly and glare at Shane. "But I swear to GOD if you tell anyone that you've seen me naked, I WILL kill you." He just winks at me. "I fucking mean it. I'm not bullshitting."

"You worry too much. We're all friends here." He snatches up his own hand of cards and shakes his head, dismissing me. I roll my eyes and spread out my five cards, keeping them close to me. My strategy is to fold before I have to take any of my clothes off. That usually works for me. But this time, I'm playing with some really good bluffers.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"What do you mean you kissed her?" I feel kind of bad driving over here at this hour of the night just to bother her with my problems but I literally don't have anyone else. I can't talk to Cristina because she gives me shitty advice anyway. Talking to Avery is a NO because if I tell him what I just did, he won't get it. He's in a happy marriage and he wouldn't understand what I'm trying to say. And the only other person I I could actually confide in is the REASON I'm so messed up right now. So even though it's almost 2:00 in the morning on a work night, I drove all the way out to Mere's just to talk.

"Exactly what I mean when I say I JUST KISSED JO." I run my hands through my hair and sigh. I'm so stressed out. This is literally the LST thing I need right now. I'm set to get married in a couple months and up until tonight, I was thoroughly convinced that I'm HAPPY in my relationship. Not that I'm all of a sudden unhappy with Iz or anything like that because I'm not, it's just that Jo's making me think and I DON'T WANT TO think. I don't want to have to think that maybe getting married is a mistake. I don't want to have to think that maybe I should wait to marry Iz until I'm more sure. I don't want to think and Jo just made me think so much. "I don't even know Mere." I hold my head in my hands and shake my head. "It wasn't even a kiss… it was a couple kisses…it was a make-out session."

"So wait… explain this to me again." I'm already sitting at her kitchen table so she leans against it and looks directly at me. "You kissed her or she kissed you? Because there's a difference. Was it mutual?" She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Alex, I thought you said you could control yourself around her. I thought you said you weren't into her. I thought you said that you had absolutely NO desire to be with her…. and now you show up at my doorstep at two in the morning to tell me you made out with the girl? Which one is it?"

"I don't know!" I pick up a fake wax apple from the basket in the middle of the table and swing my legs. "We were having fun and we started talking about sex and it was turning her on…I could tell she was getting turned on and so was I. But she cut the conversation off so I thought we were good! But then she acted all weird and she wanted to leave and I dunno…something in me wouldn't let her just leave like that. And I could tell that she wanted to kiss me. And I was so tired of fighting it. I'm tired of acting like I'm not attracted to her because I am. I really am. Ever since the tunnel incident, I've been thinking about getting her in bed and I wasn't gonna lie to her about it because I've already been a shitty enough person towards her. So I kissed her back. It was mutual."

"If you're falling out of love with Izzie, don't you think you should tell her?"

"But I'm NOT, that's the thing." I sigh again. I'm about to just go the hell home. I don't like talking about my feelings and I thought that talking to Mere would make me feel better but it's making me feel worse. I haven't felt this shitty in a long, long, long, LONG time. "I don't love Jo and that's where we clash. She thinks I want to be with her when all I want to do is bang her." I grit my teeth. "What is it with chicks? Why do they automatically think that a kiss means I'm going to drop everything and be with them? And okay, I guess I care about the girl's feelings because I don't have it in me to tell her that I only want to have sex with her. So I kicked her out and I told her that was it."

"You keep telling yourself that, Alex." She yawns but keeps on talking to me. "If it's working for you, then keep telling yourself that. But it's only a matter of time before you get tired of lying to yourself."

"You think I'm lying?"

"I know you're lying because I know you." She shrugs like it's not even a big deal at all to her. "I think you're trying to tell yourself that you don't care about Jo. I think you're trying to convince yourself that you two are just friends when you know damn well that couldn't be further from the truth. I don't think you love her. You're not lying about that. But I think you're feeling something for that girl and you're afraid that if you KEEP feeling something for her, whatever you're feeling for the intern is going to overtake the love you have for Izzie and you're trying so hard not to let that happen that you're killing yourself. I think you do have feelings for Jo…and I think deep down, you know you do."

"You're wrong, Mere. I don't feel anything for her besides the desire to get in her pants." I rub the bridge of my nose. "If anything I'm afraid that if I stay around the girl, I'm gonna cheat on my fiancée with her. THAT is what I'm afraid of."

"Well you need to get your shit together then. If I'm wrong like you say I am and all you want to do is sleep with her, then you need to get it together. Because of course I'm on your side, but I'm gonna tell you when you're wrong. And you are SO wrong to do this to her."

"I'm not doing anything to her! I already frickin' told her that this isn't anything between us! She's being stupid with it. I'm not doing anything."

"Oh Alex, it wouldn't kill you to stop being a pompous asshole for a minute. You say you care about the poor girl's feelings yet you don't mind being a pulsating DICK towards her? If you know that you don't want to be with her then you had no business kissing her."

"…You suck as a best friend."

"I'm not gonna nurture and coddle you anymore. We're not interns anymore."

"Yeah yeah yeah." I close my eyes and rub my temple because I'm getting a headache just talking to her. "So do you think I'm making the right decision by cutting off all contact with her?"

"I do." She nods. "Because if you feel like you can't restrain yourself around her and you don't want to cheat on Izzie, then you don't need to be around her. It sucks for her but it's the right decision for you."

I sigh again. "…Thanks Mere."


	17. Save

I don't feel like being at work today. I don't have my hangover anymore and I'm not overly tired or anything like that because I've already had ample time in my off day yesterday to recover and catch up on my sleep. I just don't want to be here around other people. The only person I can even stand being around is Stephanie and she's on trauma with Kepner and Hunt today which means I won't see any of her at all because she'll be so busy. I spent the entire day in bed yesterday by the way. I literally did nothing but watch TV and pop headache pills for my hangover. I did some self-discovery while I was nursing my hangover, too. Like for example, I didn't know how much I liked crappy, redundant talk shows and crummy reality TV. Dr. Phil is my favorite and I despite how pathetic I felt, I couldn't bring myself to turn off that TV show about the Kardashians. While internally I'm glad to be back at work practicing medicine, I still kind of wish that I was home in my bed watching a couple more hours of television.

I'm never drinking again either. My plan was to drink so much at Heather and Leah's that I wouldn't be able to remember the night but I still remember everything vividly and the only thing that downing five cups of Calico Jack got me was a headache and a toilet full of vomit. I remember spending half the night with Alex and making out with him for what seemed like forever before he basically kicked me out and told me he didn't want to be my friend anymore. I remember crying like a baby in front of Steph when I got in the car. I remember going to Heather and Leah's and drinking more than half of my weight in rum. I vaguely remember being shirtless and bottomless sitting around the coffee table playing strip poker. I remember having to slap Shane out of staring at me because he literally almost drooled at the sight of me in my bra. He moved on to Steph after I slapped him. Then I remember going home and throwing completely up in the toilet and that's all.

To make matters a little bit better for me, it helps that I'm still apparently banned from Pediatrics. I don't want to work on Peds because I don't want to be around him and I damn for sure don't want to take orders from him even though he's my superior. I think I might be developing a slight hatred for him. I'm on General with Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grey today and even though I hate General with every bone in my body, it's better than being on Peds. It's way better than being on Peds. I haven't even been at work for two hours yet and already Dr. Grey and Dr. Bailey have been piling on the scut. So far, I've scheduled six consults, four surgeries, three outpatient procedures and seven CTs. Don't ask me when I became someone's flunky and personal assistant because when I woke up this morning, I'm sure that I was still a surgical intern.

All I've been thinking about today is avoiding Alex at all cost, staying out of Medusa's way and going to see Brynn. I haven't even so much as heard Alex's name yet today so I'm succeeding in that aspect, Dr. Grey isn't really being her usual Medusa self towards me today so that's another plus for me and if I time it right, I can go up on the Peds floor to see Brynn while everyone else is on lunch, that way I still won't have to see him. It sucks that I have to plan my entire day around him. Everything comes back to him. I don't want to be on Pediatrics because of him. I can't go up and see Brynn whenever I want to because of him. I can't roam the hallways to go places without looking over my shoulder because he might be there. It's all about him and I don't know how much longer I can take this.

Anyway, Dr. Grey wants me to round on one of her patients but I don't have my own code to get into the electronic chart system and she doesn't trust me with her code yet, so I had to go and grab the paper chart from the nurses' station. I got the chart and it doesn't look like his lactate is in a good range so I have to go find Dr. Grey and ask her if she should do an exploratory lap. I walk down the hallway of the ICU flipping through the pages of the chart. This really doesn't seem right to me. If the patient's been here for two days in the ICU like his chart says he's been, then why hasn't anybody caught this before me?

As I'm flipping through the pages of the chart, I don't look up to make sure nobody's in front of me and I pay for that. I collide with someone taller than me and the pages of the chart I was holding clatter all over the floor along with the pages and the clipboard that belong to whoever I ran into. _Well isn't this day just off to a positive start? _Immediately, I drop down to my knees to pick up the mess I caused and I start to apologize. "I'm so sorry… I wasn't looking where I was going and I—" The person I ran into is on their knees with me picking up the mess of papers and up until now, all I could see was the small feet that are inside pink New Balance sneakers but when she puts her head down to help me, I catch a glimpse of perfect, yellowish blonde locks. _No fucking way._

"It's fine, I wasn't looking where I was headed to either. I have a habit of doing that." Of fucking course her voice is all soft and sweet and perfect to match her perfect face, perfect body, perfect EVERYTHING. When we both get what belongs to us gathered up in a neat pile, we stand up on our feet at the same time. "It wasn't your fault." I lift my head up because she might think it's rude that I'm not looking at her. _Oh my goodness… _She's so pretty! There's no way in hell I compete with her! She has the biggest, round chocolate brown eyes and her shoulder-length blonde hair is shinier than my hair could ever be. She's smiling and her teeth are so perfect and white and brighter than my entire future. And she's tall and curvy and her entire body is just… oh my god. She's like a senior cheerleader dating the quarterback and I'm the freshman band geek that wants to date the quarterback. That's the only way I can describe the difference between me and her.

"Still… I should've been paying attention." I close the chart I was looking at and shove it underneath my armpit for safekeeping. "Again… I'm sorry. I'm a little bit clumsy sometimes."

"…You're… You're Wilson, aren't you?" She's still smiling at me and she's so sweet and genuine. I have half a mind to tell her no, I'm not. I don't want to tell her that I'm the Jo that Alex wants her to meet. She'd probably be expecting someone prettier than the little brunette girl she just ran into. I should tell her that Leah's me. Leah seems like she'd be more Alex's type anyway. Leah would be a better Jo than me. "Jo's your name? Boy, this will suck if I'm wrong…"

She's funny too. No fair. Well, she's funny so I crack a smile. "Yeah." I adjust the chart underneath my arm and politely extend my hand out to her. I should be an award winning actress for being able to be civil with her. I just want to run away. "Jo Wilson… nice to meet you." She grabs my hand and shakes it with so much excitement.

"You're so cute." She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear with her free hand and keeps shaking my hand. "Isobel Stevens, but you can call me Izzie." She takes her hand away from mine and I watch her eyes gloss over me from head to toe. If I was a hermit crab, I'd totally go back into my shell right now. "I'm Alex's fiancée." She's still looking at me like she's giving me a thorough examination. "He's always talking about you, but he never mentioned how adorable you were… You're the one that helped him pick out our wedding song, aren't you?" Looking down at the ground, I nod my head. "Thank you so much. If I had left the song choosing completely up to him, I would've been stuck dancing to some mainstream radio song. Excellent song choice"

"You're welcome. What'd he go with? I know he was having some trouble choosing from a couple…" _Mental note to dress nicer at work. _Granted there isn't much I can do with baby blue scrubs, but my hair could've been nicer. It's in a low ponytail that's all messy down my back.

"He was going to go with some song called Wanted but he said something about that song having a different meaning for him…so he went ahead with Collide by Howie Day."

"Collide is beautiful… I'm glad he went with something like that."

"No, I'M glad you helped him." She laughs softly with her mouth covered, like she's a princess or something that only does things the proper way. "Alex isn't the most sensitive guy."

"That's what I'm here for." I force a smile and fix my ponytail.

She gasps like I just did the greatest thing she's ever seen in her life. "Oh my gosh, is that your real hair? Your ponytail is so long and thick… like an actual pony's tail." She seems really fascinated and it's apparent to me why. I think Alex mentioned something about her having cancer and how she used to have long hair like me but it's still growing back from her chemotherapy. I'm just guessing that's why she's so interested in my hair, because most people just act like it's nothing.

"Oh…" I reach back and wrap my hand around all of my hair. "Um… yeah. It's all my real hair but it's… I just haven't had a cut in a few years that's why it's so wild." I clear my throat and think of something to say that'll lead her to believe that I'm not in the mood to just cry over the fact that I want her fiancé and I can't have him. "It's nice to finally meet you. This should've happened sooner, but… between my busy little intern schedule and Alex's schedule and your schedule…" I'm also a pretty good liar, in addition to everything else I'm good at.

"No, I totally get it. We're all busy people." Something tells me that Alex hasn't told her that him and me are no longer friends. I don't know why he would've but at this point, I'm really wishing that he did. I just feel like if he had told her that he isn't speaking to me any longer, she probably would have avoided this conversation with me and I wish I didn't have to talk to her and lie the entire time. "Alex seriously talks about you all the time." _He does? _"You're apparently one of his really good friends. Which is kind of a big deal because… I guess you've noticed that Alex can be hard to deal with sometimes."

_You have no idea. _"He and I are just very much alike and yeah… he can be pretty hard to deal with at times but he's… he's a lot of fun when you get to know him." _Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear… _Off in the distance, I see him coming up behind her. "Shit." I mouth to myself and put my head down. She didn't notice that I just cussed, thankfully.

"Hey…there you are." He comes up behind her and puts his hand against her shoulder like he's been looking for her all morning. "I went up to see you in Derm and you weren't there…" I squint my eyes to show my distaste towards him while he kisses her on her cheek and completely ignores the fact that I'm standing here. Okay, I know that she's in fiancée and all, but I can't help but feel like he's toying with her in front of me just to show me that he doesn't want me. Maybe I'm just being sensitive though. "…What's goin' on here?" He sounds chipper but I can't tell if he's faking or if he's trying to disguise the fact that he's worried. He probably thinks I told her about our kissing incident.

"I ran into your little friend here." She motions towards me and I plaster a very fake, forced smile on my face. I have that aching feeling in my throat that I get every time I'm about to cry. "How come you didn't tell me how sweet and cute she is? She's a sweetheart, babe." He nods like he wants her to shut up about me and gives her a kiss on her lips. "What were you looking for me for?"

"I just came up to see you for a couple minutes because I'm between surgeries." He's looking at her like she's everything in his world. I would sell my soul for him to look at me like that… "Am I not allowed to miss you and want to come see you? You act like it's a crime to love my wife." Again, he kisses her but deeper this time, with more meaning. My stomach is starting to hurt a little bit.

"I'm not your wife yet…" She smiles and wipes his bottom lip with her thumb.

"That can't happen soon enough…" He smirks and another kiss and another knot my stomach ties itself into. I have to go.

I pretend to look down at the watch on my wrist and check the time. Even though they're not even paying attention to me anymore, I still find it necessary for me to explain that I'm leaving. So I sweep a chunk of my ponytail that fell over my shoulder away and clear my throat. "I have to get this chart to Dr. Grey, so…" I take the chart from underneath my armpit and glance up. They're still practically making out with each other. Her arms are around his waist and he's holding onto her like she's his lifeline. _Why does he insist on doing this to me? Like okay, I get it…you don't want me. He doesn't have to do this to me, I already get the picture. _I hold onto the chart and politely brush past them even though I'm dying to just cry.

I don't understand why he felt the need to do that. It's like he doesn't think that he's already put me through enough humiliation and disappointment and rejection for one lifetime. No, he decides to hold an unnecessary make out session with his fiancée in front of me, as if I don't already get the very clear picture that HE'S GETTING MARRIED AND HE DOESN'T WANT ME. Even though she clearly doesn't know that I was just making out with her husband two nights ago, I'm still embarrassed. I haven't felt embarrassment and humiliation like I've felt within the last two days…ever. I don't recall ever being this humiliated and I don't like it.

And it doesn't help that she's super nice and extremely hard to hate. She's so nice… and she's caring. She called me cute and she cared enough to introduce herself and she complimented my hair. Call me crazy but I swear it would've been easier had she yelled at me for bumping into her. I'm really wishing that she would've just screamed at me and called me a stupid intern and told me that I can't do anything right. Hating her would be so much simpler than loving her. I mean, I don't know… I guess I'm glad that Alex's wife is someone nice. He deserves nice.

I sigh and yank the door to the ICU open to give this chart to Dr. Grey. I was supposed to round on this patient by myself but she's in his room which indicates to me that she already rounded on him and I'm probably in trouble…all because I got caught up with Alex and his perfect little wife. "…Sorry I'm late, Dr. Grey. I had a run in with—" I hand her the chart just as she interrupts me.

"It's fine." She snatches the chart from me and goes back to checking the patient's vitals. "I need you to do me a favor. I need you to run down to the daycare and see what they're paging me for. If it's not important, let them know that I don't have time. Tell them I'm in surgery. And when you come back, I'll be in OR 7. I might need you to scrub in."

"Okay." Again, don't ask me when I became someone's personal assistant, because I SWEAR when I woke up this morning I was a surgical intern. "…And what if whatever the daycare wants is important…then what?"

"Then you call me in OR 7 and I'll let you know how to handle it. Wilson, go."

"Alright then."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Mmm… babe, you haven't kissed me like that in a while." When we pull out of the kiss we were sharing, she looks at me like she might've been dying for me to kiss her like that for a while. Funny how I haven't kissed my own fiancée like that in a long time but I was just kissing Jo like that two nights ago. And you what just scared the shit out of me? The fact that I _did _just kiss Izzie like that and… I didn't feel anything. Nothing at all. I didn't feel that little spark I usually feel when I kiss Iz, I didn't feel like I needed to kiss her more after we pulled away… I didn't feel anything. And that scares me. But when I kissed Jo…. I did.

"Well… I missed kissing you like that." I wink at her and keep my arms around her. I do still love her though. At least that hasn't changed. I can still tell that I love her and I can tell that I want to marry her. Maybe I'm just having an off day with the whole not-feeling-anything while I kiss her. "What were you and Jo talking about?" When I first approached the two of them, I was a little skeptical that maybe Jo told her that we kissed. But when I got closer and closer I realized that A, Jo wouldn't do that. She was heartbroken that I told her we couldn't be friends anymore and I don't think she'd want to relive that kiss through telling my fiancée about it. And B, if she had told Izzie, Izzie wouldn't have kissed me like she just did. She would've been too pissed to even look at me.

"Oh, we ran into each other and I helped her pick up her things. We were talking about the song and stuff." She reaches up and pulls something out of my hair. "She's a sweet girl, Alex… Why don't you invite her over more? She seems like a nice kid."

"She is." I scratch the back of my head and look around. "Jo's nice and stuff and she's funny but…" I shove my hands into the pockets of my white coat. "I didn't get the chance to tell you that we had a fall out. We're really not on speaking terms anymore."

"What happened?"

"We just had a disagreement about something."

"Like…"

"It was just a silly little argument, Iz. You don't need to worry about it." But I know Izzie and I know that worrying about it is ALL she's going to do today. I should probably just tell her but I don't want to tell her in a way that's gonna make her completely hate Jo because even though we're not on talking terms right now, it's possible that we could become friends again sometime and on the off chance that we do become friends again, I don't really need my future wife to hate my friend. I'll just lie a little bit…but I'm lying for a good reason. I'm trying to protect Jo…that's a good reason, isn't it? "When me and Jo first became friends, I didn't tell her that I was engaged so she had a little crush on me at first… and she was a little bit sad when I finally told her about you. And we had a little argument about that last night because… she was…. She was denying that she had feelings for me. We just had a disagreement."

"Well do you have feelings for her too?" She crosses her arms and taps her foot like she's just waiting for me to drop the bomb on her. First of all, NO I don't have feelings for Jo. And second of all, even if I DID have feelings for her, why the hell would I just come out and tell Izzie about them? "Seriously Alex." She looks pissed.

"No." I don't know how much longer I can say that with a straight face. "Jo's just a friend, Iz. I swear." I'm not into lying to Iz… and I think that's what I'm doing. I don't really know if what me and Jo did is considered cheating. I always used to think that cheating wasn't cheating unless you actually had sex with another person, but if I feel this horrible about making it seem like I didn't kiss Jo…is it cheating? I'm lying to Iz, I'm feeling bad about lying to Iz and I'm feeling even worse about the fact that I'm pinning it all on Jo just to save my ass. I think I'm already at the point of cheating. "I have a case up in the NICU that I need to get on. I'll see you later." I lean down and kiss her on her forehead. "Love you."

"Love you too, babe." She doesn't sound like she meant that like she usually means it, but she said it and I guess that counts.

**X X X **

I wish I had somebody other than Mere to talk to. It's not that Mere doesn't give me good advice because she does; it's just that I need somebody that'll tell me exactly what to do in this situation. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place with this. Okay, I'm done lying to myself like Mere said I was. I'm done with that. The truth of the matter is this: I love Izzie but I also kind of like Jo. I don't love Jo, I just LIKE her. I like her in the sense that she makes me laugh, she always knows the right thing to say to me and I don't feel like I have to act like I'm somebody different around her. With Jo… I can be me and she just understands. I don't have to act like I want a big church wedding with Jo. I don't have to act like I'm into being all domestic with Jo. With Jo, I'm a shitty person that came from nothing to make myself something and she gets it because she came from nothing and she knows what that's like. I used to spend time thinking that the fact that she and I are so much alike is the reason that we clash, but what if she and I being alike is actually the reason that we're perfect for each other?

Izzie on the other hand… Iz is who I'm meant to be with, I think. It took a while for me and Iz to get it right and now that we've finally got it… I don't know if I should just throw it all away. It's been a long, uphill battle for Iz and I to get to where we're at right now. I cheated on her a bunch of times when we were younger, she cheated on me and dumped me twice. We were broken up for a while until we just figured out that I didn't want to be with anybody else that wasn't her and she didn't want to be with anyone that wasn't me. And after we both realized that we wanted each other, she got sick. Her cancer took a lot out of me and it was so emotionally draining to deal with the fact that I could've lost her on more than one occasion. The cancer's gone now and we've figured out how to make the pieces fit. Everything's falling into place and now Jo came along.

I don't know what to do about any of this. I'm staying with Izzie but staying with Izzie means that I have to completely cut Jo out…and it DOES mean that, because if I just stay Jo's friend while I'm with Izzie, I can't promise that won't cheat on her with Jo. And that's not the kind of husband I want to be. I want to be in the kind of relationship where we're totally committed to one another. And let's just say for argument's sake that I left Izzie for Jo… I would feel like the biggest piece of shit on this earth. Imagine that. I stick with my fiancée through cancer and cheating and lying and cancer, but I leave her because some little intern is making me question whether or not my love for Izzie is built on something pure. Just imagine that.

I feel like I'm caught between choosing what the RIGHT thing to do is and what I want to do. What I WANT to do is the wrong thing to do but the right thing to do isn't necessarily what I want. I think… I mean, I THINK that I want to be with Jo. I think that I want to be able to hang out with her and kiss her and hug her and just be with her without feeling like I'm betraying Iz. That's what I THINK I want. But I know the right thing would be for me to stick with fiancée because even though we're not married yet, I DID make a commitment to her when I put that ring on her finger.

This is just so hard. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do and that's saying a lot. I watch little kids and babies die on a daily basis for a living…I've been through some pretty hard shit. But choosing between what I think I want and what I should do is without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done.

Well, until I figure all this shit out for certain, I'm just gonna keep saying away from Jo.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

Fuck this day. Literally, FUCK this day. First I end up on my least favorite service EVER where I end up being someone's bitch instead of practicing medicine. Then I'm practically forced into watching the man I think I might possibly love make out with his very perfect soon-to-be wife, where I find out that his fiancée is actually the nicest, prettiest person on the freaking planet. And now, I somehow got stuck in daycare. I was supposed to just be down here for a couple minutes to find out why the hell they were paging Dr. Grey but NOPE. Turns out Dr. Grey's kid had some sort of outburst where she wanted her mother so when I called Dr. Grey in OR 7 to see if this could be considered an emergency or not, she declared that Zola wanting attention was considered an emergency and guess who got volunteered to spend time with the kid? I'll give you a hint, her name is two letters and it rhymes with "So."

I don't know how many times I have to tell people that I AM NOT CUT OUT TO DEAL WITH SMALL CHILDREN ON A PERSONAL LEVEL before they take me seriously and stop giving me the daunting task of dealing with small children on a personal level. So far, I've been forced into coloring pictures, I've had my hair pulled and I've been serenaded by one of the cardiac care nurse's son. One good thing came out of me being down here though; I guess Dr. Robbins ordered that my kid should be around other children because she doesn't know how to socialize, so I got to see Brynn for half an hour. She wasn't allowed to be down here for too long, just until more kids were rounded on so they could spend time in the playroom. More kids are in the playroom in a sterile environment so that's where Brynn currently is.

She recognized me, by the way. I don't know why the fact that when she saw me she called me "Doh Doh!" made me cry. I still haven't quite figured that out. I didn't know I was that emotional to cry when a child recognizes me, but it did. And she sat on my lap the entire half hour she was in the daycare with me and I didn't mind. She actually fell asleep which kind of defeated the whole purpose of her being there in the first place, but oh well. Literally, she limped over to me (she's still in a cast and she refuses to be carried by any of the nurses), she sat in my lap, sucked on her thumb and fell right asleep. The nurse that brought her down said that that's the first time since she's been in the hospital that she fell asleep on her own without sedation. Dr. Robbins came back down to take her up to the playroom when her time in the daycare was up and she said that it would be okay if I went up to her room later on after my shift is over to put her to sleep for the night so I think I'll do that.

"That's a pretty picture, Zola." With my chin in my hand, I just watch her while she scribbles with a pink crayon all over a sheet of construction paper. She doesn't talk much, but I'd be lying if I said that she hasn't kept me good company. Up until a while ago, Stephanie was the only person I could stand being around today. Make that Stephanie and Zola now. She picks up a cluster of a red crayon, a yellow crayon and a blue crayon and hands them to me. "Thank you. Do you want me to color a picture now too?" She doesn't say anything to me, she just keeps piling crayons on me. "Do you want Jo Jo to color a picture too?" She nods her head at me.

I grab a piece of construction paper and draw a line that'll be the stem of a flower that I attempt to draw. I can't draw for shit, by the way. I'm a lot of things but artistic is not one of those things. While I start drawing the center of my flower, I feel someone tugging on my ponytail. It's not a hard tug, it's more like a very rough pet. I put my crayon down and turn my head. Another little girl with chubby cheeks, tanned skin and straight silky black hair is standing behind me. "Oh…hello." Being in this daycare all day really made me realize that I have more patience than I ever knew. I normally HATE to have my hair pulled and messed with, but when the little kids do it, I don't care. "What's your name?" I ask the hair-pulling bandit. She's cute but like Zola, she doesn't talk to me. She just keeps playing with my hair. I guess I don't really care. So the little girl has more leeway with my hair, I reach back and pull it out of my ponytail.

When she sees the other little girl with her hands in my hair, Zola puts her crayons down and stands behind me as well. The tanned skin girl picks up a crayon and starts coloring my hair. I don't even bother to stop her because crayon won't show up on my hair because A, it's crayon and B, my hair is too dark anyway. "Are you guys giving Jo Jo a makeover?" Neither one of them answer me. Instead, I get a little giggle from Zola and nothing out of the tan one. This is the second time I've been given a makeover today, but this is the first time they actually played with my hair. "Okay… make sure you guys make me pretty." I pick up a purple crayon and start drawing flower petals.

From the corner of my eye, I see the door to the daycare open and through it walks both Dr. Torres and Dr. Grey. _FINALLY! SOMEONE TO SAVE ME! _I put the purple crayon down and look up at the two of them with desperation in my eyes. Okay so, I'm hungry and I really need to pee. I haven't been able to move out of this daycare for the last couple hours. I need to piss, I need to eat and I really just need to see a patient. I don't even feel like an intern anymore as much as I feel like a babysitter. But I must admit that spending time with kids all day really took my mind off Alex. "Wilson…what have they done to you?" Dr. Torres shakes her head like I'm the most pitiful thing she's ever seen.

"They're…giving me a makeover." I poke my lip out and mouth "help me" to the both of them.

"Alright…come on, Zo Zo. No more torturing poor Jo here." Dr. Grey picks Zola up and hoists her on her hip. Dr. Torres picks up the other little girl… she must be her daughter. I guess yeah that makes sense now. They look alike. "Are you hungry Wilson?" I nod my head and pick myself up off the floor. When I stand up, a yellow crayon falls out of my hair. "Alright, it's lunch time… you can go ahead and eat. Thanks, by the way. You really came through for me today."

"No problem." It totally IS a problem though. I've been a professional babysitter all freaking day. Can I at least go spend time in the pit? I'll do whatever scut anybody has…please just let me feel like a friggin' surgeon. I can't tell Dr. Grey that I had a problem babysitting her child though. She's my superior…if she tells me she wants me to mop the floor with my tongue, I would. I'd cry about it, but I would do it. "Um… we colored pictures, I got a makeover, she sang the Frozen song to me, we took a potty break and I got another makeover by both of them…and that's pretty much it."

"So she was good?" I follow the both of them out of the door.

"Yeah…they both were." I grab my hair while I'm walking and tie it back up. "Your little girl sang to me earlier as well." I tell Dr. Torres. "She sang Taylor Swift to me… it was cute."

"If you'd let her, she'd talk your ear off. Sofia talks a whole lot once she's comfortable with her." She's holding the little girl's hand while she walks. Yeah I definitely should've been able to see that sooner. She looks JUST like Dr. Torres. "You got kids, Wilson? You're great with them…"

I shake my head. "No… I don't have kids." And even though I still don't have the desire to have kids someday, I decide to leave that part out.

**X X X **

I have about two hours until my shift is over and I'm still running around like a chicken with my head cut off for Dr. Grey. She has a hernia repair that she's letting me scrub in on in an hour for watching her kid today. Maybe she's not such a Medusa after all, but she could at least give me a break. The only break I've had today was during lunch. After lunch, I had to do all her afternoon rounds and schedule a few more surgeries for her. Now she's got me running down to OB to check on one of her pregnant patients with gall stones. I think I'm gonna pass out when I get home and go to bed.

On the up side, I don't have to worry about paper charts anymore because Dr. Grey trusts me enough with her code now to log into the electronic system. I grab the electronic chart of the charging dock and start walking up the flight of steps that'll lead me to OB. I punch her code into the chart system and bring up the patient I'm supposed to go check on. Her name is Bridget McKellar…. And she's in room 201. Sounds easy enough. I flash my name badge to the nurses at the OB nurses' station and keep walking. The OB nurses are like WAY strict when it comes to people that aren't authorized to be there being on this floor. I guess they're so freakish about it because people steal babies and shit like that all the time and they want to make sure people aren't coming in to do that.

I knock twice and open up the door to Mrs. McKellar's room. The lady is laying in her bed, clearly heavily pregnant, reading a book with a pink cover. "I'm Dr. Wilson, Dr. Grey's intern… I'm just here to check and see how you're doing." I squirt some hand sanitizer on my hand and rub it in. "It says here on your chart that you were experiencing Braxton Hicks… have those gone away or are you still in discomfort?"

"They've gone away, hon. I was wondering if I could get something for the pain in my back if that's possible…" She's clearly older than I am which is why I assume she felt the need to call me "hon."

"Let me just have a look here…" I take a look at her vitals and I check the last time she's been given some fluids for pain management. It's been about eight hours since her last dose so she can have some more. But I don't know if her baby can withstand this much medicine in this amount of time and I'm really not trying to be held accountable for killing this woman's kid so I'll just ask one of the nurses out there about it. "It's been about eight hours since the last time you've gotten pain medicine, so generally that's beyond the time frame and you should be alright to have more pain medicine however I'm not too sure about your baby… I'm just gonna go ask a nurse to be sure."

"Thank you honey."

"You're welcome." I grab the chart and leave the room. I look down the hall to see if there's a nurse that's already on the floor and not at the nurses' station when I see him for the first time in a while. "Fuck." I mumble to myself as soon as I see him. I should've known better. I should've KNOWN that being up here would probably mean that I'd see him. I'd rather come face to face with Alex and I mean that. I lean against the nurses' station and ignore him like I've been doing for the past two weeks. "The patient in room…" I can't even concentrate long enough to remember what I wanted to ask the nurses, because the look he's giving me is something DEADLY.

"Well would you look and see who's still alive…" His voice is all friendly and playful which makes my stomach drop because even though I didn't know him for that long, I knew him long enough to realize what he means when he acts all happy and shit. He's psychotic. "Long time no see, right?"

"…Hi Jason." I focus all my attention on the nurses. "So I have a patient in room 201… she wants pain medicine but I'm not—" He grabs my arm and my entire body just…tenses up.

"Come on… I want to talk to you about something." He mutters and literally DRAGS me away from the nurses' station…and the nurses don't even do anything about it. Granted there's only two nurses there but still… they have to know how psychotic he is by now, don't they? He pulls me over to an empty, barren hallway and stands in front of me so I can't leave without passing him. "Why haven't you been returning my calls? Or my texts? It's been two weeks!"

"…I thought you'd get the picture." I look behind him to see if there's an alternative route I could go if I have to run from him. Down the long hallway is some other guy wearing blue scrubs and that's it. No alternative to being here with him. "Look…we can talk about this some other time. I have a patient that I have to take care of. I'll talk to you later."

"Just tell me why you didn't have the balls to break up with me for real?"

"…I don't have to explain." I sidestep him. "Excuse me." He pushes me back by my shoulders. "Stop… I'm not even fucking kidding."

"I thought we were good…and you just leave me hanging like that?" I'm not even looking him in his face. I'm focusing on the dude at the end of the hallway wearing the blue scrubs who seems to be watching us. "You can't just leave me on a limb like that. I started to come over to your house…"

"What do you mean you thought we were good? You hit me…" I squint my eyes. "We're over. Since you need me to spell it out for you… we're over. And we've BEEN over. Leave me alone now." I sidestep him again but he grabs my arm. "Jason, I'm so serious… I'm not even joking. Lemme go." He squeezes my arm and slams me so hard against the wall that the electronic chart in my hand drops down to the ground and slides across the floor. _My shoulder… oh my god, I think he just dislocated my shoulder… _"STOP!" _I really want to hit him back but the last time I hit a man back hard enough to let him know I meant business, I got arrested… _He pins me against the wall and hovers over me. Through my peripheral vision, the dude in the blue scrubs that was watching us gets closer and closer. _…Of course. Of fucking course. Oh, OF COURSE. This is just my luck, isn't it? Because NOTHING in my life can play out right. Nope. No random stranger could help me…right? It has to be HIM of all people. _

"Dude… just leave her alone." Like the nonexistent God in the sky is just trying to taunt me, ALEX of all people wraps his hands around Jason's shoulders. "Leave her alone."

When I think about it, it makes sense that he'd be up on OB's floor as well. He's a Pediatric surgical resident…Peds and OB go hand in hand…it doesn't surprise me that he's on this floor as well. But COME ON. It's like a double freaking whammy for me here. Psycho ex is trying to kill me but oh look! Captain Save-A-Hoe to the rescue! "Alex, just don't… don't, okay?" I'm holding my shoulder in pain, but I really need him to just go… I can handle this.

Jason pushes Alex's hands off his body. "You've had a problem with her and me from day one. You LEAVE. I'm having a conversation with my girlfriend…"

"Alex… GO." I use my good arm to push him away.

With his hands TIGHT around Jason's shoulders, Alex just gives me a glance that lets me know that I need to shut up. "You don't put your hands on her."

"Oh it's not me you have the problem with… you have a problem with the fact that I fucked her." Jason pushes him away again but Alex draws his fist back.

"ALEX, STOP!" I grab his fist before he can even connect it with any part of Jason. "Just walk away! Walk away… Okay? Walk away…"

"Get off me, Jo." He talks to me through clenched teeth.

"No… just walk away. Don't… don't go to his level. Please… walk away." I keep my hand on his fist. "Walk away…."

He takes a hard, sharp breath and does what I say. He kicks a garbage can over in his haste and walks back down the hallway the way he came. I'm so grateful that he helped me out. I mean, there's no telling what Jason could've done to me. But HIM of all people…HIM. HE had to be the one to step in though? I look at Jason, shake my head and walk after Alex.

He needs to be calmed down.


	18. Careful

"Alex!" While I'm making my way back up the hallway I came down, she's screaming after me. I can't even bring myself to look at her because what just happened WASN'T supposed to have happened. I don't even know what came over me. I wasn't looking for her or anything, I was just looking for extra blankets because I have a patient up here on OB that just delivered three weeks early and the baby needs an extra blanket. While I was looking, I just so happened to stumble across Asshole yelling at somebody that just so happened to be my girl. Something came over me when I saw him slam her against the wall though. What I felt when I saw that was something stronger than anger. I could've killed that asshole and I don't think Jo understands that. "Alex, wait… please…" The only reason I stop walking is because it sounds like she's crying. _Please don't let her be hurt. Please…DON'T let this girl be hurt. If he hurt her… Let's just say that it won't be good for him if she's hurt. _

I stop walking and turn around. The garbage can I kicked over is sprawled out in the middle of the floor. She's has her right arm slung across her body holding her left one like that's the arm that's hurting her and she's walking slowly towards me. She looks behind her while she walks like she's afraid that he might be chasing after her but he's not. He took a hint and disappeared down the other end of the hall. She's crying quite loudly and I know she's hurt but I can't help but notice that her cry is really pretty. When she makes it over to me, she stands at a decent distance from me and keeps crying. She coughs softly and lets the tears run down her face. I can't even open my mouth to ask her if she's alright. I'm too pissed off to even utter a complete sentence. It's really taking every bit of strength in my body not to go break my foot off in Peckwell's ass.

Instead of me breaking the deafening silence between us, she does. "Are you okay?" She asks me. Her usually perfectly tanned-white skin is blotchy and red from her crying. I can't believe she's asking me if I'M okay. She just got manhandled and slammed into a wall…yet she's asking me if I'm alright. "I'm sorry you had to see that I just… I thought I had it under control." She looks elsewhere instead of looking me in my eye. "I'm sorry."

"What the hell are you sorry for?!" I find myself screaming at her so I tone it down a bit. She just made me so mad with that. Why the hell is she apologizing when HE just put his hands on her? He doesn't get to touch her anymore. And to make matters worse, I had to find out from HIM that she had sex with that clown? Again, angry isn't the word… I'm not angry. I'm BEYOND pissed off. I'm pissed that I just saw him put his hands on her and I can't kill him like I want to because I'm at work and I'm even worse off because I just found out that she…like an IDIOT…she slept with him. She told me that she had sex with him before when I didn't really give a damn about her but… the way he said it this time. He said it like she meant nothing to him. "You don't have to apologize for him being a bastard."

Her jaw trembles like she's gonna start crying some more and she nods. She blinks once and more tears flood her face. Slowly and reluctantly, she takes her hand away from her injured arm and puts her head down. I don't think I've ever seen Jo so upset. Not even when I told her we couldn't be friends anymore. "Lemme see…" I mumble and gently take her hurt arm into my hand. "He hurt your shoulder?" She nods her head and sniffs. "I don't think it's dislocated… but come on."

"I have to do something for Dr. Grey…" She pushes my hand away from her and sighs. "You can go back to not being my friend anymore. You don't have to…feel sorry for me. Thank you for…helping me out, but I get the picture. You don't have to be my friend, Alex." She goes back to holding her hurt arm with her free one. "Thanks again." She tries to walk away but I don't let her.

"Jo, wait." I grab her hand. "I only said that I can't be your friend anymore. I didn't say that I don't want to be." I interlock our fingers so she can't take her hand out of my grasp without a fight. "Come here." I shake my head because I know I'm about to regress by talking to her and being with her but I can't help it. I can't just let her walk away. I can't let her walk away when she's hurt, I can't fight the fact that I want to kill Peckwell and I can't ignore the fact that I'm PISSED that he made having sex with her sound like a hobby instead of something special. "I still want to be your friend but…" I close my eyes. "What happened two nights ago can't keep happening…"

"I know, okay? I know…" She bites her lip. "…You made that clear when you kissed her like that in front of me. I know you don't want me Alex. I know you don't care about me and I know you don't want me and I know that kissing me wasn't something that you wanted to do. You did it to appease me." She finally looks me in my eyes and all I can see is tears. I'm not a complete ass, you know? I'm not completely insensitive and I don't want to make Jo cry. I stare at her mouth and think about how it tasted a couple nights ago. "You didn't have to do that… you didn't have to do that to me. I get it. I get that she means everything to you and I mean nothing. You didn't have to embarrass me…"

"Sorry, alright?" I brush my fingers along her cheek to wipe away her tears and curl my hands through her beautifully thick, wavy brown hair. She looks down instead of at me. "Look at me, Jo…" She doesn't move her head up, she just moves her eyes to look at me. "I… I care about you. I care about you so much that it frustrates me. You're right; I don't want to be your friend." She rolls her eyes at that but I keep talking to clean it up. "I don't want to be your friend Jo… but it hurts to NOT be your friend. I care about you…don't you ever think that I don't. I'm sorry that I embarrassed you by doing that but… you just don't understand."

"Then make me understand, Alex… make me understand. Because I want to understand. I want to understand why one minute you hate me then the next you don't. I want to understand why you were going to punch Jason over me. I wanna understand why you felt the need to embarrass me like that in front of your fiancée. That wasn't necessary, Alex. You say I don't understand but you make no effort to make me."

"I can't make you understand. There's no way to get you to understand when I don't even understand. I can't tell you one thing when I don't even understand it. I'm in a rough place here."

"You kissed her in front of me, Alex… what's so hard about explaining that?"

"It just a kiss… and she's my fiancée, why the hell wouldn't I kiss her?"

"I'm just saying…"

I think I'm about to open up a can of worms here but she's bringing me to the point. I was just gonna let it go and bask in anger and irritation by my lonesome without even mentioning the fact that I'm pissed to her but she's gonna take me to this point so I'm just gonna say it. "What about the fact that you had sex with Peckwell?" Her jaw drops when I say it as I knew it probably would. "You had sex with him. You barely even knew the jerk but you slept with him…and now he runs around and talks about it like it's something casual."

"He was my BOYFRIEND and that's not your business." She's mad at me, I can tell. She's pissed at me for even bringing it up. "I had sex with my BOYFRIEND and it was before I even gave a shit about you. I had sex with him before all of this."

"Right. And Izzie is my fiancée, I kissed her in front of you… how is any of that YOUR business?" I put my hands on my hips and raise my eyebrow, hoping that she gets where I'm going with this. "What you did with Peckwell isn't my business. I think you're an idiot that needs to keep her pants on. I don't think you had ANY business sleeping with that man…but you did and that's NOT my business. Just like what I did with Izzie isn't your business."

"You were making out with me two nights ago… HOW is the fact that you kissed her in front of me not my business? I didn't have sex with Jason in front of you, first of all…and second of all, I didn't have sex with him after I had sex with you. There's a difference." She folds her arms and glares at me. "…Why do you care about what I do with Jason anyway? What I do and who I have sex with shouldn't matter to you."

"I just think you should keep your pants on…and have sex with people that'll appreciate you."

"Yeah I'll remember that next time, Ace." She rolls her eyes. "So what is this? Are we friends or not? Make up your mind because your moods are giving me whiplash and you're starting to piss me off."

I sigh. I hope I won't regret this. I really hope I won't regret being her friend again. I know I shouldn't be her friend. I know that being her friend isn't gonna do anything but cause problems but just like I told her…NOT being her friend is way worse. I have to practice some restraint around her. And maybe if we both set some limitations and boundaries, being friends won't be such a terrible thing. "…You said you're free tomorrow?" She nods her head slowly, skeptically. "Wanna meet at Joe's tomorrow around 9:30?"

"Sure." She looks down at her pager. "I have to go…Dr. Grey's paging me." I notice a pained look on her face as she rolls her shoulder around. I'm glad she can move it though. She can move it so nothing's broken or dislocated. If he would've broken something in this girl's arm then I would've been forced to fuck him up. There literally wouldn't have been any other option for me. If he would've broken Jo's shoulder or her collarbone or ANYTHING on her for that matter, I wouldn't be able to help myself and I'd probably kill that man. "9:30 tomorrow?"

"9:30."

"I'll be there."

**X X X **

"What do you work tomorrow?" I shut the shower water off and reach my hand out to grab my towel before I pull the shower curtain back. I wrap my towel around my waist and pull the curtain back. She's standing at the sink brushing her teeth and washing her face for bed. She's in a t-shirt and her underwear which doesn't even excite me anymore. I used to get real happy and stuff when Iz walked around in her underwear because I used to think of it as one less article of clothing I had to remove when we were gonna have sex. But she kind of lost her sex drive and ever since she decided that she doesn't like sex as much as she used to, it hasn't excited me to see her in her underwear anymore.

She leans forward to spit out her mouthful of toothpaste. "I go in at 7:30 tomorrow morning and I'm not sure what time I'll get off. It's lump and bump day tomorrow so I probably won't be home until late. Why?" She sticks her toothbrush back into the holder and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "Don't you get off at 8:00 tomorrow?"

"Yeah." I grab my own toothbrush and squirt some toothpaste onto it. "And I was just wondering if you care if I go out and have a drink with Jo tomorrow. If it bothers you that I go out with her then I just won't go…I just thought I'd ask before I just go." I just lied to her. If she told me that it would bother her if I went out with Jo tomorrow night, I'd still go anyway. I'd probably lie and say that I'm going out with Avery instead but I'd still go hang out with Jo. I'd feel a lot better if Iz knew and didn't care that I hung out with her though. If I'm being honest, I think the days of Iz not caring if I hang out with Jo are over. Now that I told her Jo had a crush on me, I 'm pretty sure I can kiss those days goodbye.

"I don't care." She shrugs her shoulders and stands behind me while I stand at the sink. She puts her hands around my waist and rests her head in the middle of my damp back. "Are you sure you don't encourage her?" She slides her hands from my waist up to my chest. "You said that she had a crush on you…are you sure you don't encourage it? By inviting her over and stuff? I'm not in the business of sharing my husband, you know…"

"I'm sure, Iz." I start brushing my teeth in hopes that she'll just drop the subject.

"If you have a crush on her too Alex, that's all you have to say." She sounds like she'd be cool with it if I did tell her that I'm falling for Jo just a little bit but I know it'd be the exact opposite. She'd rip me a new asshole if I told her how I feel about Jo and that's the truth. I'm not falling into the trap of her sounding like she'd be cool with it. Nope. "She's pretty and she's young. She's small…smaller than me at least. She's cute…"

"Enough about Jo for one day please." I usually hold my tongue around Iz because I know the SECOND we start to fight, she'll be on that phone with her mom arranging a trip to Chehalis. But this time is different. It's almost as if I don't give a shit that she'll leave me if we argue and I really don't think I care. "I don't know how we're gonna get married if you can never trust me. You always assume the worst with me and it gets really freaking old. I love you Iz… but you make it so hard sometimes."

"Oh my god whatever. I was being nice about it but since you want to be a dick, fine. I won't ask you and I won't try to be understanding." She takes her hands off me and stomps out of the bathroom.

"You don't have to be understanding because I don't like Jo. There's nothing for you to be understanding about. It gets so old to listen to the same thing every day. I hear it from Mere, I hear it from Robbins, I hear it from Cristina and now I have to hear it from you too… I'm tired of hearing it." I go into our bedroom and grab a pair of boxers to put on. "I'm just sick of hearing it. I want everybody to shut up about it…not just you."

That's the truth though. I want everyone to shut up about it. Okay yeah, I like Jo. Yeah I like her and yeah I liked kissing her and yeah I care about her. But I don't want to keep constantly hearing it because all it does is make me feel worse and worse and worse about it. It's like when you make a huge mistake and you KNOW you made a huge mistake and you just want to forget about it but everyone keeps on bringing it up. I wish everyone would just leave me the hell alone about Jo. I'm digging my own grave with that girl and I'm making my own decisions and I don't need people in my ear to keep reminding me about her. She's on my mind enough as it is.

I already know that people are gonna hate me enough as it is without me thinking about her 24/7. I haven't decided what I'm gonna do about it yet but I already know that people won't be understanding. If I decide to leave Izzie and try out the relationship with Jo, everyone's gonna think I'm a dick. They won't understand that I feel like I'm drowning with Izzie anymore. They won't even listen if I try to explain that I didn't mean to fall for Jo. And if I stay with Izzie and decide to just cut Jo out of my life for good, Jo damn for sure won't want to hear that I kissed her and I care about her but I don't want her. Nobody is gonna understand what a tough position I'm in so I literally don't want to hear anything from anybody.

No matter how the chips fall, it's always gonna end up coming back to me being an asshole because once you cheat on your fiancée and once you break a girl's heart, you're an asshole for good.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

This bruise on my shoulder is the size of an orange. I'm glad to know that my arm isn't broken or dislocated or anything like that but it hurts like hell. I can't keep letting him put his hands on me like this. He's really starting to bruise up my body and I don't like that. Granted, I think he gets the picture about us being broken up now and hopefully I won't ever have to deal with his psychotic ass again but I swear if he does hit me again, it's not going to end well for him. I'm not a fucking punching bag and I don't appreciate being treated like one. I'm just so scared to hit him back because seriously, the last time I hit someone that was hitting me, I ended up in jail. It was a real stupid reason and the jackass had no right to call the police on me but he did and I was in jail for a good four days. That was a dark time in my life and I don't really like to think about it or talk about it but yeah… I could really hurt him if I hit him back and that scares me.

I lifelessly squeeze some Bengay into the palm of my hand and rub it on my bruise. Steph looked at it for me while we were still at work just to make sure there wasn't anything broken. She said it looked like I bruised my shoulder pretty bad but she couldn't be sure unless she asked Dr. Torres and I refused. The last thing I need is to explain to one of my superiors that my ex-boyfriend beat the hell out of me. I can move it and it doesn't hurt as bad as it did when it happened so I'll take that as a sign that it's going to be fine. "Mmm mmm…" I softly bob my head and hum aloud to the song I'm singing in my head. It's been stuck in my head since I was in the daycare with Zola and Sofia earlier. It's some Taylor Swift song that I've heard on the radio but I don't know the name of. Something about being young and reckless and being insane, that's all I've caught from the bits and pieces of the song I've heard. Sofia was singing it to me today but her little jibber-jabber didn't do the song much justice.

I walk into the living room and sit down on the couch next to Steph. I'm getting used to being here, by the way. I've been living with her for almost a month (it'll be a month in a week and three days) now and things are getting easier. I mean I'm getting good with not having to lock the door at all times and I've been making conscious efforts to keep my hair out of the shower. Also, it's not a big deal for me to walk around in my underwear anymore. I'm wearing a long t-shirt and a pair of underwear and Steph's donning the same exact thing. "So what's the move for tomorrow?" I ask her. We're off tomorrow and tomorrow's payday. Next week we start working every day and we're only off on weekends but for now, we're just supposed to enjoy our next off day and our first payday.

"I don't even know." She pushes pause on the remote control and turns to me. "I was looking through my clothes yesterday and I realized that I need more jeans and stuff so I was gonna go shopping tomorrow since we literally have no bills to pay this month and this paycheck will probably be the only check we can splurge with. So I was gonna run to the mall… what about you?"

"I was just gonna throw it in the bank." I grab a couch pillow and put it across my lap. "I don't need clothes or anything. I'm probably just gonna save it for a rainy day or something."

"Jo… we literally have like a thousand dollar paycheck coming our way tomorrow…and you don't want to splurge on ANYTHING?"

"No." I poke my lip out and shake my head. "I don't need anything."

"I can think of about a million things that you could buy yourself. You can buy yourself a new phone because the one you have is a shitty minute phone. You could come out to the mall with me and buy yourself some new clothes. You could get your nails done with me. You could get your hair cut because you've been screaming about that for a while. You could grab yourself some new shoes…. There are so many things that you could splurge on."

"But I don't need any of that. I'd rather just save it. I can't afford to buy myself a phone that I can't keep up with, I don't care if I have new clothes because all I do is wear scrubs anyway, my nails don't need done, I can cut my own hair and I have sneakers."

"It's okay to treat yourself you know…" She unpauses the TV and grabs an Oreo out of the pack sitting on the coffee table. "You worked hard for that money and you deserve to treat yourself. You don't ever do anything for yourself, Jos." _Did she just call me "Jos"? Someone used to call me that when I was in high school… I kind of miss that someone. _"You do everything for everyone else and you never do anything nice for yourself. You know damn well you need some new clothes and you know damn well you need your hair done and a new pair of shoes. But you're too damn stubborn and too much of a miser to do something for yourself."

"…But what if I spend the money on stuff I need and I need it for something else… like what if I can't pay my portion of the rent or something or what if we have a fight and you kick me out or something. You don't understand how quickly things change, Steph. If you understood, you'd save it too."

"How many times do I have to tell you that nothing is going to happen?!" She looks at me like she's a little bit irritated. "NOTHING is gonna happen, Jo. You'll never go hungry while you're with me, you'll never be thrown out on your ass as long as you're living with me…NOTHING will happen. You need new clothes so buy yourself new clothes. Simple as that. I promise I won't kick you out. I promise we won't be hungry. I promise okay?"

"…Okay." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "…So if we really do have a thousand bucks coming to us, I could probably swing a new phone and new clothes but that's it. I don't want anything real expensive. I don't need one of those smart phones or anything like that. And I'll settle for going to like… the cheapest clothes store around. I don't need anything real expensive to make me happy."

"Of course you don't." She lies back on the couch and puts her head on my lap. "So you said something about having a date tomorrow? Should I come with? Just to make sure he doesn't start hitting you?"

"It's not with Jason, it's with Alex."

"Jo."

"What?"

"No…that's what."

"I can take care of myself, Steph. I know what I'm doing. I know how to protect myself from getting hurt by him."

"Where have I heard that before?"

"I know… but it's just for a drink. I'm not kissing him again and I'm not going to his house. I'll be fine. I'm just glad that we can be friends…"

"…Alright." She sighs. "You know I'll be here to wipe your tears and stuff."

"That's why I love you."


	19. Boundaries

I can't believe I let Steph talk me into spending all my damn money. Don't get me wrong; I'm not mad at her. I'm not mad at her at all. I'm actually quite thankful for her if I'm being honest. She made me realize that I actually do need to start taking better care of myself. The only issue I'm having now is that, well… I'm fucking broke. I spent almost every last dime of my paycheck. I have forty bucks to my name for the next two weeks until I get paid again. I put all my shopping bags down on the floor of my bedroom and start going through them so I can put my new things away. Is it weird that I feel like crying? I've never had shopping bags upon shopping bags upon shopping bags full of things that are all mine. Everything in these bags belongs to me and I feel like I could just cry.

I start with one of the bigger light pink and hot pink striped Victoria's Secret bags and open it up. This must be what it feels like to actually be a girl because I swear once I started shopping, I couldn't stop. Steph and I hit every interesting store in the mall and we were seriously running out of arm space for bags. I reach my hand down inside the bag and pull out the first pair of sweatpants that I bought. They're black and they say PINK down the leg in cheetah print letters. I bought a couple PINK jackets and three pairs of yoga pants from Victoria's Secret. I rounded out that store with seven pairs of sexy underwear, a really nice padded bra and three thongs because Steph insisted that I had to wear thongs if I was gonna wear yoga pants.

We went to some other store called Forever 21 and I bought a couple shirts and a few pairs of jeans from there. I got a couple new pairs of boots from this store called The Shoe Warehouse and I got pair of sneakers from there as well. Steph went into the AT&T store to see if she could buy a new case for her phone, or so she claims that was the reason we went there. I don't know how the hell it happened but while I was looking around at the fancy smart phones I could never afford, Steph was talking to this guy that worked at the store and half an hour later, I walked out of that store with a brand new iPhone. It's pink on the back but I have a case on it because the case was free with my contract. Something about signing a contract didn't set right with me but Steph promised me that it was alright and so I trusted her.

I owe her sixty bucks a month for the phone bill in addition to paying my portion of the rent each month. The $60 shouldn't be too bad for me to afford if I'm careful. If I'm careful not to go over our data package, sixty bucks should average out to the amount of money I used to spend purchasing minutes for my TracFone. My phone isn't nearly as impressive as Steph's gigantic Galaxy android phone but you know what? It's fine for me. I've never had a phone like this before and plus it didn't even cost me that much. It cost me $26 because I had to pay something out of pocket for the actual phone but it was discounted because I was starting a new contract with Steph's pre-existing one.

After we ate lunch at the food court, we went into this store called Journey's because Steph wanted to buy a pair of Converse to wear at work and I caved in and bought a pair for myself. It worked out pretty well because I wear a size seven and Steph wears a seven and a half so we can share shoes sometimes. She bought a black pair and I thought I was cute because I found a pair of baby blue ones that'll match our scrubs. We rounded out our shopping expedition by stopping at Bath & Body Works. I bought a couple bottles of perfume and a bottle of lotion and a couple portable hand sanitizers to carry around in my scrub pants. All in all, today was a successful day. I'm running low on cash until next payday but I feel really good. I have nice things for once in my life.

It's almost 8:30 and I need to start getting ready to meet Alex and Joe's in an hour. I'm honestly hoping that tonight doesn't end horribly with him because I've been having a pretty awesome day thus far. I'm literally so happy for the first time in a while and it'd be a real bitch if he ruined it for some reason. I don't think he will because clearly we established that we're friends and if I go into this date with a friendly mindset, I won't be upset; but I'm not completely ruling out the possibility that he might piss me off somehow. Put it this way: This date can either be the perfect end to a perfect day or a shitty end to a perfect day. I hope it's the latter.

When I finish putting all my new things into their respective places, I plug my new phone into the charger and lie it down gingerly on my bed. Aside from my watch, my phone is the nicest thing I've ever owned in my life. I'm going to go take a shower because I don't want to smell bad around Alex first of all and second of all, I'll probably be home late and I won't feel like showering later. Steph didn't come home with me. She dropped me off then went out somewhere with Leah so since she's not home, I can take however long I need to take in the shower; which is good because I desperately need to shave. I'm not planning on doing anything tonight with Alex or ANYONE for that matter; I just haven't shaved in a while. My armpits need shaved, my legs DESPERATELY need shaved and between my legs is way too fuzzy for my liking as well.

I turn on the shower water and make sure it's as hot as I like it to be. I take off my clothes and step right inside the spray. I'm kind of excited to spend time with Alex. Despite the fact that he makes me physically sick every time I see him and my stomach ties up in knots when he speaks to me, I really like being with him. I like spending time with him and I like feeling like I don't have to share him for an hour or two. I think I might love him. I really think I might love him and that scares the crap out of me. It scares me because it might not be pure and I might just be pining after him just because he shows me some attention because I tend to do that. I just can't go a day without thinking about him…when I do think about him, I'm instantly happy… I smile every time he crosses my mind even when I want to cry, I find myself looking for ways just to see him… if that isn't love then what the hell is it? I fall for boys entirely too quickly. I swear I'm delusional.

But if it's not love then what the hell is it?

**X X X **

"Just leave the door unlocked for me. I don't know what time I'll be home." I'm a little bit early so I'm sitting in a booth towards the back of the bar by myself while I wait for him. I'm only early by about ten minutes so it's not that much of a wait. "I'll be okay… okay. Thanks for asking…. Yeah, I'm sure." Steph's busy being a mother to me instead of being my friend but I don't really mind it. It's kind of sweet how she always makes sure I'm okay. I drum my fingers along the pleated wood of the tabletop. "Mhm… Yeah. Alright. Love ya too… yeah, see you. Bye." I tap the end button on my phone and slide it to the corner of the table so it's out of my way.

I didn't dress super pretty but I just hope I'm not underdressed or overdressed. I put on a pair of my new black yoga pants—the ones with the word PINK written across the lower backside in blue glittery letters and I put on one of the oversized knit sweaters I bought. It's blue to match the lettering on my pants and it has little flecks of glitter in it. I bought it in a large so it'd hang off my shoulders and it is. I put on my new bra and one of my new thongs as well. The thong is a little bit uncomfortable but I'm pushing through. I didn't want to overdo it so I didn't doll myself up with makeup but I do have a little bit of earth-toned eye shadow on and some mascara. I nixed the eyeliner.

There are so many couples here tonight that I feel like the world is personally against me. There's a couple sitting in the booth behind me, there's a couple in the booth in front of me and a couple in the booth across from me. I mean it's Friday so I get why everyone is with their significant others tonight but still… must they all sit around me? Anyway, this bar brings back bad Jason memories. I hope I can wash out all those bad memories tonight with good ones from Alex. I feel the air shift beside me and I pick my head up.

He's wearing a pair of jeans and a long sleeve sweater. He looks like he might've just gotten out of the shower because his hair is wet but that could also be an indication that it's raining outside which wouldn't be a surprise for Seattle weather. "And I thought I was early…" He adjusts himself so that he's comfortable in the seat and folds his hands. He sighs like he just managed to catch his breath and licks his lips. "So what's up?"

I can't help myself…I just have to smile. "Nothing… just waiting for you, obviously." I rest my chin in my hand and continue smiling at him. I really wish I could stop smiling like an idiot but I can't help it. "Is it raining outside or did you just get out of the shower?"

"Little bit of both." He runs his hand through his hair like he's checking to see if it's still wet and wipes the dampness on his pant leg. "So what'd you do on your day off?"

"Went to the mall and spent my entire paycheck….that's about it." I clear my throat. "How was work?"

"Slow." He slips the cocktail waitress walking past us a ten dollar bill and grabs two beers off the tray she's carrying. He slides one bottle across the table at me. "I spent the whole day in the NICU because we were slow." I pick up my own beer and start to take the cap off of it. He twists the cap off his with ease and takes a sip of it. "Had a talk with your little boyfriend too."

"…You didn't!" I immediately put the bottle down and just stare at him. "Alex… no! What'd you say?! Come on… you didn't have to do that…"

"I did." He nods. "He doesn't get to put his hands on you. That doesn't fly."

"Just drop it…god." I roll my eyes. "I don't even want to know what you said to him… I don't even care. It was so unnecessary for you to do that. I said I have it under control and I do… I don't need you to fight my battles. Damn." It's starting out to seem like this is going to be a shitty end to a perfect day. He hasn't even been here five minutes and I'm already irritated with him. "Stay the hell out of my business… that wasn't your business!"

"When he's slamming you into walls, bruising your arm up all bad like that it IS my business. He doesn't get to hurt you Jo… that's not cool. He doesn't get to hit you or talk about you like you're a piece of meat. You don't deserve that and it's bullshit that you're fine with letting him do that to you. That's shit Jo and you know it is."

"I have it under control though, that what you're not getting! I don't need you to fight my battles. I don't need you to protect me. You're not my guardian angel and you're NOT my boyfriend. I have nothing to do with you aside from being your friend. That wasn't your place to talk to him without me knowing. I swear…" I look up at the ceiling and grind my teeth together. "I can handle Jason."

"Oh well." He shrugs. "It's over, it's done with. I talked to him about putting his hands on you and I told him I'd kill him if I ever found out he did it again. I don't care. I care about you and I care if someone's hurting you and I'm not gonna apologize for that."

"Whatever." I just shake my head and take the first sip of my beer. I don't want to end the night by being pissed off with him so hopefully I can change the subject to something better. "I kind of wish you would make up your mind. One day you hate me and then the next you're talking about beating people up over me. Which one is it? Do you hate me or are we friends?" I hope I didn't come off as brash or rude in saying that but I just can't take his mood swings anymore. it's getting to be too much for me to handle emotionally anymore.

"I never did hate you, Jo. I just—"A waitress stops at the table behind us which makes him stop in the middle of his sentence. I turn my bottle of beer up to my mouth again and take a small mouthful. "Are you hungry? Do you want to order something to eat?" He asks me. I have a mouthful of beer so I just nod instead of attempting to talk with my mouth full. I was expecting him to pick up on the sentence he left off on before he asked me if I was hungry but he doesn't. He runs his hand through his hair again and locks his eyes on mine. "I've decided that I'm not gonna try to stay away from you anymore, so there's that."

"Don't worry. I promise it won't happen again." I grab all of my hair that's resting in the middle of my back and move it over to the left side of my shoulder because it's tickling me. I was supposed to get a haircut with my paycheck today but I ended up spending all of it before I got the chance. I really need to get one soon because my hair is disgustingly long. There's no way it should come way past my boobs and touch my stomach when I'm sitting down. When I look up though, I notice that he's looking at me with a strange look on his face. "That was a lapse in my judgment and I'm ready to be your friend…just your friend."

He nods to acknowledge the fact that he heard what I just said to him and downs another gulp of his beer. It's so quiet between us that I can hear the music that's playing over the speakers on the dance floor and purely out of coincidence, Black Widow just so happens to be playing. When I hear it, a smile creeps across my lips. "Isn't this your favorite song?" I lean across the table to ensure that I'm playfully annoying him with my banter. "You used to be…thirsty for me…but now you wanna be set freeeeee."

"Shut up." He taps me on my forearm and sticks his tongue out at me like a five year old. "I lied to you. It's not really my favorite song. I don't listen to much mainstream music and that was the first song that I could think of that I thought you'd know. I didn't know if you'd ever heard of the Styx or Bon Jovi and crap like that."

"…I'm not an alien, of course I've heard of Bon Jovi." He must really think I come from another planet. Who in America hasn't heard of Bon Jovi? "I lived in my car, not under a rock."

"Did you really live in your car or are you just messing with me?"

"Why would I lie about that? I lived in my car all through high school. I don't tell everybody about that…but I wouldn't lie to you about that."

"How, though? I would've never guessed… You seem like you have your shit together and you've always had your shit together…I would've never even guessed." He folds his hands and sits back. "How does one come to live in a car?"

I tuck my hair behind my ear and look down at the table because I'm not sure if I'll be able to look him in his eye while I tell him. "I just got tired of the foster system, basically. I got tired of it. I got tired of bouncing from house to house, going to people that clearly didn't want me and to people that…" My voice cracks and I didn't even realize until now that I'm getting choked up. "People are horrible, Alex. And I got tired of it." I quickly pull myself together enough to finish. "So I was sixteen when my last foster home completely ruined everything for me and I ran away. I didn't run far… but I got the hell out of there and never looked back."

"And they just let you? They didn't even call the cops to find out where you went?"

I shake my head. "They didn't care. And it was a lot of lying all the time. I don't recommend that to anybody but especially not a high schooler. It's A LOT of lying. I'm just glad it's over." I look down at my hand and find a hangnail on my thumb. "So what'd you go to juvi for? Or were you lying about that?"

"Nah, I wasn't lying." He shakes his head. "Dad was a junkie that ran when he got the first chance, mom was schizo so she couldn't take care of us. I have a little brother and a little sister that needed to be fed and I wasn't old enough to get a job yet so I swiped some food from the grocery store…that old thing." I like how he doesn't make a big deal of it. I really think he understands me more than anybody because he seems to understand that every shitty situation doesn't require pity. He gets that some things aren't a big deal because that's life. I like how he just gets it. "You're actually lucky your parents walked before you got the chance to remember how shitty they could be."

"I guess that's one way to think of it." I tap my fingernails on the table. "I like to think that I'm a better person because of it. It sucks to know that nobody in my life has ever wanted me but I can't imagine actually growing up with parents that never wanted you in the first place. I guess growing up on my own taught me how to be independent. I'm a better person because of it." I sigh. "But it's just troubling to think that the one person in this world that's supposed to love you more than she loves herself….doesn't. It still kinda bothers me to think about a mother that could leave her baby."

"That's why I wanna have kids." He mutters and looks away because I think he's getting a bit emotional as well. "I wanna do everything right with my kids, you know? Everything my pop didn't do for me, I wanna do for my kid. I want a do-over… I wanna do it right. I'll be a great dad, I already know it." He clears his throat and grunts. "You ever feel like that? Like you want to do it right with your kids?"

"I don't want kids." I swear I've told him this before but maybe he didn't take me seriously. He looks at me with wide eyes and one eyebrow raised up like he doesn't understand what I just said…so I'll take a courtesy minute to explain that I'm not a heartless bitch that doesn't want children. "I just never had anyone around to teach me how to be a mom so I'd be a horrible one. I didn't have a mom to do my hair for the prom or hold me when I was sick or something. I don't even… I don't even know what mothers do. I just don't feel like I'm cut out to be somebody's mommy…being somebody's mother would be the worst possible thing for me."

"So you never want kids? Like…not even in the future?"

"No. And I'm adamant about that. I haven't wanted kids since I was like eighteen or nineteen and I haven't changed my mind yet so I probably never will. I love little kids and I love babies and I don't have any issues with babysitting or holding a baby but I don't want my own. I don't need to be a mom. Trust me, I don't need to be a mom. Birth control is my best friend. Been on it since I was seventeen and don't plan on being off it until I'm old enough for them to tie my tubes without a hassle."

"At least you realize that. At least you have the brains to realize that you don't want a kid so you're not gonna have one. You're smart about that."

"If by some miracle I got pregnant, I wouldn't abort my baby. I wouldn't abort it and I wouldn't give it up for adoption. I'd get accustomed to the fact that I'm gonna have to suck it up and be a mom and I'd love it and I'd keep it and I'd raise it… but I really don't want one." I don't really want to talk about babies anymore, so I lick my lips and switch tactics. "So do you know where you and Izzie are gonna go on your honeymoon?"

"…We haven't even thought about that yet." His mood instantly changes when we talk about that. I can tell that something's bothering him and just like me, he takes the opportunity to change the subject from his wedding to something else. Remind me to never bring that up to him again. "This is boring." He says, looking around to see everyone that's in the bar at this point.

"Yeah." I agree. It gets all silent again between us again and I hear the music playing again. It's a slower song this time but still a song I know and I catch myself mouthing the lyrics to myself. Isn't that how it usually how it goes? The song that's playing somehow relates to your love life? How cliché, right? "I'm falling apart…I'm barely breathing with a broken heart that's still beating. In the pain there is healing…in your name, I find meaning…so I'm holding on…I'm barely holding onto you…"

"You like Lifehouse?" He must've caught me singing to myself.

"…Yeah a couple songs." I admit.

"Saw them in concert once. They came to Seattle my intern year and me and Izzie went to see them."

"Sweet." I put my tongue in my cheek because that song literally just got me. Don't you hate that? When you're in a perfectly good mood and then you hear a song that just fucks it up? I was doing so well too. I wasn't even thinking about wanting to be with him, I wasn't thinking about how I kissed him…I was being friendly. But that's all down the tubes.

"You wanna go back to my place? To watch a movie? It's boring here." He asks, sounding rather frustrated. I bite my lip and just look at him. I'm sorry but this sounds like something a boyfriend would ask his girlfriend. "As a friend, Jo… As a friend."

"…Okay."

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: **So I'm aware that this update was rather crappy and I'm really sorry for that. I had every intention on making it so much better than this but I've been so busy applying to colleges and kicking ass in my senior year of high school this week that I won't have time to do a really good update until the weekend, so my next update will be this weekend, probably around Saturday. I promise that the next update will be SO good because I have so much material to cover in the next chapter that it'll be fairly long and really fun to read, especially if you liked the Jolex interaction in the last two chapters.

Also, I'm having a bit of an issue here...maybe you guys can help me figure it out. I'm at the point where I can change the rating of the story within the next five or so chapters completely to M, but I don't want to do that. I want to keep it T rated so that the story still shows up on the updates page without having to change the filters. I want my story to still show up underneath the recently updated page and it won't do that if I switch the story's rating to M. (I'm just nervous that the people that haven't subscribed to get the alerts when I update won't notice when I update if the story doesn't show up on the recently updated page).

So, at this point I was planning on writing pretty hardcore smut for this story but since I want to keep it a T rating, should I scale down the smut to something T rated? Or should I keep the smut as dirty as I was planning on making it, just giving little warnings (like saying M rated content ahead or something like that) before it starts to get dirty? Or should I just suck it up, change the story to M rating and deal with the fact that some people won't notice when I update?

Any feedback is appreciated... I'm really stuck on what to do here and you guys are my readers so everything I do, I do based on what you guys would like. So please help!

Oh yeah, and thanks for being understanding about the shitty updates lately. Life of a high school student lol..

-flawlesspeasant.


	20. Don't Want

"Scary movies don't really bother me." Even though we've been in his house for about twenty minutes already, I'm just now reaching down to take off my fur boots. I kind of wanted to wait until we found a movie to watch before I got all comfortable and now that he decided we're gonna watch one of the old Friday the 13th movies, I can get comfy. I pull my boots off my feet and put them on the floor next to the couch. I pull my legs up and tuck them underneath my body. "I've never really seen a scary movie that bothered me enough that I couldn't sleep. I don't really understand how some people can't make the connection that it's just fiction…you know?"

"Some people just don't have that ability I guess." He's busy setting up the DVD player to his living room TV. "Like Iz. She hates scary movies. It's not to the point that she won't watch them because she still will watch em with me. But she hates them. They freak her out real bad…especially demon movies. Movies about possessions and demons and stuff? She won't watch them at all." He shoves the disk in the player and grabs the remote. "Scary movies don't mess with me either though."

"Speaking of…" I lie my head against the back couch cushion and watch while he makes sure the TV is on the station it needs to be on and stuff. "Where is she? Is she working late again?"

"Yeah." He pushes play on the DVD and the movie's previews start. "She was supposed to be home at like 8, but one of the derm attendings called in sick so she has to stay the overnight." He sits down on the opposite end of the couch from me and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. "We've been on opposite schedules for the last couple weeks. If she doesn't get off early or if I don't get out late, we never see each other." It doesn't sound like it bothers him too much but again, I'm not that fluent in speaking Alex's language yet so he very well could be upset I just can't see it.

"That sucks." I lean forward and pick up the can of Pepsi he offered me when we first got here. He offered me another beer but if I drink too much then I'll be all drunk and I don't want Alex to see me drunk. So I just settled for a can of Pepsi instead of a beer. "It's nice that you guys know that you've still got each other even when you don't speak though." I put my Pepsi back down. "How long have you and Izzie been together?" I've been curious about that for a while but I'm just now feeling comfortable enough to ask him.

"Off and on for four and a half years." He says that so fluently and so quickly, he didn't even have to think about it…which surprises me, because usually guys have to think really hard about their anniversaries and birthdays and such. He must really love her to be able to rattle off the exact number right off the bat. "We met when I was an intern. I was 27 and she just turned 28."

"She's older than you?"

"Told you I have a thing for older chicks." He chuckles. "Only by a little bit. Her birthday's on the 28th of June and mine's on the 5th of January…so she's not that much older." He scratches the stubble on his chin and turns towards me. "When's your birthday? I don't think you ever told me…"

"May 5th." I move my hair from the middle of my back and start to watch the movie. "…Do you think you'd be able to survive a scary movie? Like… if you had to be in the scary movie and all that shit was happening to you in real life… do you think you'd be able to survive it?" Some girl just got murdered in the shower with a pickax and the screams sound so fake and edited. I can't believe this movie would be considered "scary" back in the 80s. "I like to think I'm smart enough to survive. You just can't be stupid… like don't split up, don't go places alone and never turn off the lights…those kinds of things."

"I could probably survive it. If you follow the rules like you said, it's not that hard to survive it." He's staring straight forward at the TV, watching as blood is gushing out of this girl's skull. "It kills me when they run into the woods like idiots. Like whatever's in the woods is gonna save them, they go straight for the woods. They don't go for a car or a road or something that'll lead them to people. No, the idiots go straight into the woods."

That makes me laugh because he's so right. "Or wait no, when they run PAST the front door and go downstairs or upstairs. Like why go PAST the front door just to hide in the basement? You deserve to die if you're that fucking dumb."

"Or how about when they fall? The dumb blonde always falls down and breaks her hip or something and she takes ten years to get up. She was running, fell and the killer that's chasing her catches her while he was WALKING. There's no way that should happen. I don't care if you're running with track-star speed, the killer is still gonna catch your dumb ass if you fall."

"I know, right?" I'm looking at him but he's not looking at me. I find myself admiring him. He's so perfect, you know? The way his jawline is carved out the side of his face and the way his eyes are all dark but sparkly in the darkness… he's so perfect. "No, when they shoot the killer one time and expect him to be dead. Stupid asses. Shoot him until there's no more bullets in the damn chamber."

"You have to pass an idiocy test before they let you film a movie, don't you know?" He circles his tongue around the tip of his beer bottle before putting it down. He looks over at me finally and I look away quickly to make it seem like I wasn't just admiring his perfection. He holds his gaze on me for a really long time though. I don't even look him in his eyes. I pretend to be watching the movie. "What color are your eyes, Jo?"

I turn my head when he asks that and wrinkle my brow. "My eyes?" I widen my eyes and squint them like I can actually see them to see what they look like right now when I know damn well I can't see my eyes without a mirror. It's like trying to see my forehead. "They're…brown. Boring, poopy brown." Nobody's ever really asked me about my eyes before. They usually ask me if I've gotten lip injections or hair extensions but never about my eyes. "…Why?"

"I was just wondering. I couldn't tell." He shrugs it off like he just asked me casually about the weather. "And they're not boring brown. They're lighter than any other brown eyes I've ever seen, that's why I asked."

"Oh." I poke my lip out, shrug my shoulders and turn my attention back to the TV. And here I thought he was looking at me… here I thought he actually found something about me that's pretty. I'll just redirect the conversation… "We should like…write a book… about how to survive a scary movie. Name it Alex and Jo's guide to surviving a scary movie." I pull the sleeves of my sweater down and bawl my hands up into fists to hold them in place. "Think it'd sell?"

"Most definitely." To my dismay, he stops looking at me as well and starts to watch the movie. "…Rule number one, don't be blonde. Because if you're blonde, you will fall down and you will die." He grabs his bottle of beer again and takes a quick sip. "Blondes can be so dumb, it's a shame."

"…You're marrying a blonde." I lean forward and pick up my Pepsi. "And aren't blondes your type? You don't go after brunettes, do you?"

"I don't discriminate. If you're hot, you're hot. I do lean towards blondes though, but I don't really mind. I don't care what color your hair is." I think he's done with his beer because he puts the bottle back on the coffee table and leans back comfortably against the couch. "I've met some pretty hot brunettes in my day."

"Yeah I bet." I sigh. "So uh… rule number two." I desperately switch the subject of that conversation because I don't even want to think about if I'm on that list of hot brunettes or not. I'm probably not. I'm so not Alex's type. I can just tell that I'm not. "Don't have sex in the scary movies. If you have sex, you're a prime target and you can pretty much count on being killed while you're in the middle of it."

"Dude, that would suck." His tone is something completely serious which makes me laugh. He's so serious about it. "I'm not even laughing right now…that would seriously suck. Can you imagine being in the middle of some really good sex and just getting killed? Just like that?" I can't even take him seriously right now. I'm too busy laughing. "I'm so serious. That's literally the worst thing I can think of. Like at least let me finish…"

"Well would you rather have blue balls or die?"

"I'd rather die and I'm not joking." I let out the loudest laugh I've ever laughed in my life. "Go 'head and laugh but…" He chuckles to let me know that he finds it funny as well. "Obviously I really wouldn't rather die but blue balls hurts so bad… it's next to death. It hurts so bad…you don't even understand."

"Well I'm a girl, so…"

"So yeah, you wouldn't understand." He rubs his temple like he's stressed or something. "Imagine… imagine if you…" He sighs, frustrated. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Since when do you ever ask me if you can ask me a personal question?" I switch the positioning of my legs and put them flat on the floor because my knees are cramping up. "But sure…shoot."

"Do you shave?"

"Yeah? Don't all girls? Only dirty girls don't shave… I'm not a dirtball."

"Well I was just asking because some girls don't. Some girls think it's pointless to shave it so they just leave it natural I didn't wanna assume…"

"OH! You mean… you mean I shave my… oh." I feel my cheeks get hotter as I blush. "Um… I'm not disclosing that information." Of course I shave my crotch. I shave it completely bald…but I'm not gonna tell him that. Why would I tell him that? "Just assume that I do…finish what you were gonna say."

"I was gonna compare it to you cutting yourself shaving but…" He clears his throat, completely ignores the movie and turns to me. I adjust myself so that I'm facing him as well. "You really don't shave?"

"I didn't say that. I didn't say that I do and I didn't say that I don't. I said I'm not gonna tell you cause that's just… weird." I'm smiling so wide and bright but it's more so because I'm nervous and flustered over this conversation. "I'm not discussing the happenings of my vagina with you…"

"You'll tell me you're a squirter but you won't tell me if you shave yourself or not? Logical."

"Oh god." I close my eyes and feel my cheeks get even redder. "That's like me asking you if you shave your balls…I would never expect you to answer that." I cover my face because I'm blushing so damn hard right now. "…Are you one of those guys that care? Some guys don't give a shit but others are real picky about if it's hairy or not…"

"Well it depends." He nods. "If I'm just hittin' it then I don't care… but if you expect me to eat it…I care. I'm not getting hair in my mouth."

"OH MY GOD." I look up at the ceiling with really rosy cheeks. "You are so shallow! If the girl is clean then it shouldn't matter! It shouldn't matter if you're just having sex with her or if you're gonna go down on her. If she's clean then what does it matter? And if you do the job right, you shouldn't get hair in your mouth anyway. You're not biting… you're just licking."

"So why don't you just say it, Jo?" He's smiling just as hard as I am.

"Say what?!" I can't stop smiling… I can't.

"That you don't shave it. Just admit it. You're dropping all these hints that you don't. Just admit that you don't. It won't matter to me… you can just admit it."

"But I'm not saying that." I fold my arms across my chest and try so hard to stop smiling. "I'm not saying if I do or if I don't. It shouldn't matter. I'm not saying it." I comb my fingers through my hair. "….What do you think?"

"Well at first I thought maybe you did because you strike me as the kind of girl that definitely shaves, but now from this conversation, I don't think you do. I don't think you shave it."

"Okay then just keep it to yourself. Use your imagination because I'm not telling you."

"Or I'll just find out."

I turn my head and look at him. "…What did you just say?"

"You heard me." He mumbles that and keeps talking underneath his breath. "You talk a lot of shit that I'm not sure you can back up. It's one thing to talk a good game but…"

"What the hell do you mean?" I know I'm flirting so hard with him right now but he's flirting back and I can't help it. I really can't help myself. "I back all my shit up." I toss a couch pillow at him. "Goodbye Alex…you don't want none of this. Don't get beat up in this living room."

"You think you can beat me? Really? You're like two feet tall and 60 pounds. I wish you would try to beat me up little girl." He throws the couch pillow back at me and I whack him upside the head with it. "Stop playing, Jo!" He yanks the pillow off me and hits me back with it. I grab another one from behind me and slap him with it. "Please don't make me hit you!"

"Hit me then!" I reach across the couch and tap him in the back of his head with my hand. "You won't do anything! You won't do anything!" I keep giving him little bitch-slaps across his face and he's taking it in stride. "Come on, Alex… hit me." I bawl my hand up in a fist and lightly bop him on top of his head. "You're really gonna get beat up by a girl? Shame on you… didn't you wrestle?"

I guess he gets tired of me hitting him because he grabs my hands so quick that I don't have time to react and he pushes me back against the couch so that I'm lying flat down against the cushions. He pins my arms down so I can't move and hovers over me. "What are you gonna do now little girl?" I stick my tongue out because I can't move. "That's what I thought. Stop talking shit like you're six foot, 300 pounds. You'll get beat up." He lets my hands go but doesn't get away from me…he's still hovering. I'm looking up into his eyes and he's looking down into mine and I've never felt so good in my life. _Please just let me kiss you…_

He hasn't blinked yet and neither have I. The two of us are very discreetly in a staring contest. He said that it can't happen again, but… I swear I have to. And I swear this is the last time. I strain my neck and lift my head up and kiss him quickly then pull away. That was so quick that I didn't even get to taste his lips but it was something. I'm not satisfied though, and apparently…neither is he. He lowers his face down to mine, takes my bottom lip between his and sucks on it. I swear I'm melting…

He tangles his fingers inside my hair and I wrap my arms around his neck. I just don't want to break the kiss before I have to. I know he said that this can't keep happening and I agree with that. But how do I stop something that feels so right? How do I restrain myself when I want him this bad? I part my lips to allow his tongue inside my mouth and he accepts my invitation with ease. With his tongue deep in my mouth massaging my tongue, he takes his hands out of my hair and brings them down to my legs. I don't think he's comfortable with the current position we're in because he puts his hands on the backs of my knees and opens my legs so he can lay between them. I know very well that I should tell him to get off me before I do something I'll regret. I know that this is wrong. But how am I to stop him? How do I tell him no when I want this?

I lay my hands flat against the back of his head and stroke his hair while we kiss. I know this won't go any further than kissing so I'm determined to make this worth my while. I just don't understand how this could feel so right? I feel like this is what's supposed to be happening…even though I know I'm in the wrong. His lips are so glossy and smooth, my lips just glide right over them every time he darts his tongue in and out of my mouth. I push my tongue deep into his mouth with the same intense strength and he takes his hand from behind my leg where it was resting and puts it on my jawline as he pulls away. _No… not yet._

Should I start apologizing now? Should I begin by telling him that I'm sorry for kissing him again? Fuck. What did I just do? The last time we kissed he told me we couldn't be friends anymore. He generously gave me a second chance and I just fucked up again. Damn. My arms are still wrapped around his neck and even though he stopped kissing me, he hasn't pulled back enough for me to look him in his eye yet. I take my arms away from his neck and slide them down his biceps all the way to his forearms. He holds himself up with his muscles flexed in a push-up position. We're still lying pelvis to pelvis with each other and I'm a little bit hypnotized by the fact that I can feel him against me…and he's hard.

I bend my knees while he's still between my legs and move my hands back to his head. His face is still down, almost level with my collarbone and he's not looking at me. I want to let him know that I'm sorry but at the same time I'd still like to be his friend if that's even possible at this point, so out of care, I stroke my fingers through his soft, fluffy brown hair softly. I would love to be able to play with his hair while he's lying on top of me all the time. I would kill to switch places with his fiancée for just an hour. I swear I'd treat him like a king for that hour.

He sighs and picks his head up while I'm rubbing his hair but instead of pulling away to tell me that we have to stop like I was expecting him to, he resumes to kiss me. _YES… _I open my mouth and he kisses me so harshly and so roughly that my head smashes back into the couch cushion. I need to pull back to breathe but he's not even letting me do that. He's kissing me like he's been starving and my mouth is the only source of food…hungrily. My hands are still in his hair but I don't rub his hair anymore, I grip it to let him know that I'm just as hungry for this as he is. He takes his lips away from my mouth and goes immediately, without hesitation to my neck. _Oh god no… don't do that. _

His tongue prods the space right underneath my chin as he drifts over towards my ear and down towards my chest. I roll my eyes to the back of my head and take a breath because I can't breathe. I'm so ready for him…in more ways than one. Mentally, I want him worse than I've ever wanted anything in my entire life. Physically, my body's ready for him as well. He's driving me crazy and making me so, so wet. In fact, I think my underwear are sticking to me. He softens his lips into a soft "O" shape and starts sucking on my neck. I bite my lip… he really has to stop before this goes further. I can feel the fact that he's already given me a hickey…I know he has. I take another sharp breath when he moves his mouth up to my earlobe. God…how does he know? How does he know what gets me going?

And to match what's going on between my legs, I feel him stiffening more and more by the second while he's working my neck with his mouth. I bite my lip so hard that if I don't cool it, it'll bleed. I wonder how he's faring with this…

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

First and foremost, she smells so…freaking…good. I don't even think it's perfume that's making her smell so good either because it's like the scent is embedded in her skin. I can always tell by a girl's scent whether she's clean or not and yeah, she's clean. She also has the softest skin I've ever felt in my entire life. Every single part of her is soft; her arms, her hands, her neck, her lips… her lips are soft as hell. I don't want to do this but I'm afraid at this point that stopping isn't an option. I'm way too curious about her to stop now. I just need to see what she's like. Like I said, she talks a real good game so I can't help but wonder if she really can back it up. Is this girl as perfect as she seems? Because from what I've been shown so far, Jo has no flaws. I can't find one single flaw on her body and I've been looking.

At this point she's probably thinking that I want to stop because again, I know Jo and it's not hard to tell how she thinks for the most part. She probably thinks that I don't want to do this and I plan on cutting off the friendship when this is over but that's not true. I don't want to stop just as much as I assume that she doesn't want to stop. I lower myself down on top of her body so that I'm lying flat against her, but I'm careful that I don't put all my weight on her because she's so much tinier than what I'm used to. I keep my face smashed inside the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent while I'm kissing her neck.

I slide my hands up underneath her shirt but keep them on her stomach. Damn, even her stomach is soft. Her skin is so smooth and blemish-free that it's unreal. She's lying flat against the couch with her hands on the back of my head and her hips stick out when she lies down. Her stomach is flat and I can tell that her thinness is natural. I wrap my hands around her hips and rub the indentations of them with my thumbs. I don't care anymore; this is going to happen whether I want it to happen or not. It's gonna happen sooner or later anyway…why not now? Even though I don't want to, I take my hands off her hips for a second and pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes are squinted like she can't bear with what's going on and she bites her lip when I'm shirtless. I think she caught the drift of the fact that I'm not gonna stop tonight because she leans up and pulls me back down on top of her.

I toss my shirt on the floor and kiss her lips again. Aggressively, she takes the lead on this kiss and sucks on my bottom lip so hard that it goes numb for a second. From the day that I started to get to know her up until now, there's always been so much tension between the two of us. I'm tired of acting like there's nothing between us. It's tiring and frankly, I find it easier to just have sex with her at this point than to act like it's never gonna happen. I grab the rim of her sweater and pull on it to let her know that I want it off. She sits up without breaking our kiss and allows me to pop her sweater off over her head and toss it on the floor. Her bra is pink and lacy with white lace trim around it. Like her hair is a big inconvenience to her, she reaches back with her hands and makes it so it's behind her and out of the way.

**A/N: ** **It's about to get M rated so reader discretion advised.**

I can't wait any longer, so I put my face down to her chest and plant soft kisses in the crease between her boobs. Is it bad how right this feels? It feels so right to be doing this with her. It doesn't even feel wrong… I stick my tongue out and trace the visible skin of her boobs with it. I can hear her breathing becoming uneven but I can also tell that she's trying to control it. She reaches up and runs her fingers through her own hair with a low, monotonous gasp. She does everything so poised and perfectly…I wonder what she sounds like when she's moaning.

I've never been good with unstrapping bras so rather than fight with the clasp in the back; I pull her bra down as much as I can so that her boobs are coming out the top of it. I cup the left one with my hand and massage it, wasting no time occupying the right one with my mouth. I don't know why I'm surprised by the perfection of her boobs. I swear I already established that everything on this girl is handcrafted perfection…so why am I surprised that her boobs are perfect as well? They're not very big but they're honestly very far from small; they're big enough to satisfy me. Her nipples are in perfect proportion to her boobs. They're small enough to fit completely in my mouth.

I tease her nipple with the flattened end of my tongue which makes her take a deep, unsteady breath. I hear her mumble the word "fuck" to herself but the voice she said it with was a voice that suggested she might've wanted to moan instead. I move on to her left one, replacing my tongue on the right one with my hand. As if I needed anymore reassurance that she is clean, her boobs taste like soap. It's not a horrifying soapy taste, it's just very faint and dull…enough to let me know that she probably just washed before coming here. They smell like soap too.

I cup my hands around both her boobs and knead them while I deftly circle around her nipples with my tongue. She violently drags her fingers through my hair, leans down and kisses all over my head. Just by that gesture of her kissing me, I can tell that she's enjoying the hell out of herself. Honestly, I'm bored with her chest and I'd much rather find out what between her legs is like but I want to take things slow with her. I don't know why but I feel like I owe it to her to be slow and make sure she's comfortable and stuff. I don't think that Peckwell made her feel special and she is…you know? Not saying that I'm gonna be slow forever, because I probably won't be. If this actually escalates to sex tonight, I can't promise that I'm gonna be slow…I'll probably end up going so hard that I'll be out of breath by the first five minutes because I would…I REALLY would love nothing more than to make Jo scream. But I just feel like foreplay is the least I can do with her. I don't even know if she's wet yet. Maybe I should check that out…

I don't move my mouth away from her chest; I just stop massaging the one that's not occupied by my mouth and slide my hand down her stomach. I slide my thumb inside the top part of her pants to open them up to make it easier for me to get my hand in them. She doesn't seem to care that I'm moving from her chest to between her legs. In fact, she parts her legs a little bit more for me. I think she's wearing a thong because I don't feel her underwear covering her completely. They slim out the deeper between her legs I go. Yeah, it's definitely a thong.

Using the same tactic I used to get inside her pants, I slip my thumb down the front of her underwear first and I don't feel anything. I was expecting to feel a little bit of fuzz because we pretty much established the fact that she doesn't shave earlier. I already wrapped my head around the fact that her not shaving would be the only flaw I could find on her body, but she really never ceases to amaze me. I kiss her on her neck, sliding my entire hand down the front of her thong and listen to her breathing, which is still a bit unsteady. She's completely bald…it's smooth as a baby's bare ass. "Thought you said you didn't shave…"

"I…" She struggles for a minute to form a sentence without having to take a breath. I'm not inside her yet… I'm just rubbing my hand around it to get her even wetter than she already is. She licks her lips and sighs like she needs to moan really badly. "I never said that…" She's so petite and tiny but her thighs are super soft, warm and thick. I glide my hand further between her legs and caress the inner parts of her thighs. It doesn't make me any sense how soft every single part of her body is. I feel like my hands and my mouth are gliding across smooth velvet. She takes the break in my rubbing between her legs to sit up and unclasp her bra. I pull it off with the hand that's not between her legs and throw it on the floor along with her sweater and my shirt.

She doesn't lay back down flat against the couch though. She allows me to keep my hand between her legs but she sits up and starts fumbling around with the button to my jeans. When she unbuttons them and starts to unzip them, I dig my hand a little bit deeper between her legs and tease her around the outside for a second, making sure she's wet enough so that when I decide to push a finger in, it'll go in with ease. I notice she closes her eyes for a moment too long and bites her lip before she continues to slowly move her hand inside my pants. Her hands skillfully move along me, tracing my erection through my boxer shorts.

I lean forward and plant a soft, tender kiss on her neck. I know what I'm about to do to her, so I don't take my lips away from her neck; I keep my mouth there remaining still with my lips pressed neatly against her throat, breathing a breath here and there against her skin. Below her waist I gradually start to ease my single middle finger inside of her, eliciting a quiet gasp from her. Just like I expected her to, she stops touching me for a second as her breathing hiccups and she tilts her head back. She hasn't uttered anything above a slight whisper yet but if I have it my way, she'll be screaming in a little while. I don't move my finger in and out as usual; instead, I move it back and forth just to get her used to it. She's so wet that she's literally dripping down my hand.

She entirely stops playing around with me. In its place, she wraps her arms around my neck, parting her legs and taking my one, single finger deep. She buries her face in my neck and squeezes me tight like she's giving me a hug but I know that she's just doing it to cope with the fact that it's feeling good. She's breathlessly gasping in my ear and it's like music to me. I love hearing how I'm making her feel. I feel her teeth dragging against my neck while she's mumbling a couple swear words under her breath, which makes me smirk. Her hips are bucking towards me in a forward-backward motion like she's really, really enjoying this.

I can't deal with foreplay anymore. I want her so bad at this point. I don't even want her anymore; I need her. Even though she's really getting off with just my finger, I slide it out and hook my fingers on the rim of her pants. She knows what I want because she unwraps her arms from around my neck and helps me out. I grab her pants and her underwear at the same time and pull them both down. She lies down flat again and lifts her hips up so I can take her pants and underwear off. I toss them on the floor with the rest of our clothes and take a minute to just admire her perfectly naked body while she's lying in front of me, propped up on her elbows.

Her tons and tons of silky brunette hair is evenly distributed between being behind her back and clustered around her chest. Every part of her body is perfectly proportionate and a perfect reflection of everything I thought she'd look like naked. Her skin is off-white and cream-colored with little flecks of brown scattered all over her. She has beauty marks all over her body and for some reason, I find them incredibly sexy. I really like the one on her chest, directly above her right boob though. I guess she notices that I'm just staring at her because she grabs ahold of the rim of my pants and yanks on them. I was too busy admiring her body to realize that I'm not even naked yet.

I help her out and take the remainder of my clothes off, putting them logically on the floor. I'm assuming that the movie that was on the TV is over by now because the living room just went dark and I can only make out the shadows of her body. She doesn't have any trouble finding me in the darkness though; she places her hands flat on my back and pulls me down on top of her. I take one of my hands and use it to hold myself so that I can guide it inside when I'm ready. She hungrily forces my lips against hers and gives me a near desperate, passionate kiss. I slowly, carefully… push the tip and just the tip, of my erection… inside of her. She stops kissing me immediately when I do that and her mouth just drops.

I pull back and look at her face. Her eyes are closed and her eyebrows are twisted in a way that could suggest that she's in some degree of pain. Her mouth is open but not very wide…just wide enough for me to see the bottom of her teeth. I'm not sure if her expression means pain or pleasure so just to be careful, I go really slow and gentle as I ease the rest of myself deep inside her. I could just ask her if I'm hurting her but I'm not sure that she'd answer. She hasn't said a word to me since before I started fingering her. I'm still not sure if she's uncomfortable or not, so the first thrust I make inside of her is a slow one. She brings one of her hands up and covers her face with it as she muffles a moan. Okay, I'm not hurting her. I grab onto her hips to brace myself and draw my pelvis back as far as I can without slipping out of her. She takes her hand away from her face and as soon as she does, I make a really hard, deep thrust back inside and that makes her moan louder. "Ohhh…" _Are you kidding me? Even her moan is perfect?_

I can't even lie about this. She's everything I thought she'd be and more and I haven't even gotten started yet. She's so tight that I can barely slide in and out, she's dripping wet and her moan is the prettiest thing I've ever even heard. This is exactly how I thought it would be…maybe better.

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><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I don't know when but sometime in doing all of this, I shut my brain off. I was seriously contemplating on stopping him and telling him no after he fingered me because I know this is so wrong and I know for a fact that I'm gonna regret this. I'm gonna hate myself for doing this but I just… I need this, you know? I need to know what I'm missing when it comes to Alex. I need to know that I had a chance and I didn't waste it, if that makes any sense. I don't know when I became someone's second choice but I'm coming second in Alex's life which is better than being nothing to him. Like I said, I don't know when it happened, but I managed to shut my brain off and stop thinking about all of that and I'm just going with it. I don't have any common sense or good judgment, remember?

I'm having the hardest time catching my breath. He's not going fast but he's thrusting so hard that I can't even keep up in my mind and I canNOT stop moaning, which isn't like me. Usually I can control my screaming/moaning/groaning/gasping but for some reason, he robbed me of that. I can't control myself. "Ahhhhhh…" He's holding me still by bracing himself using my hips so I literally don't have any other choice but to lie still while he's going so…incredibly…hard. "Oh god…" I dig my nails deep into his back and drag them to deal with the fact that I'm gonna… "Uhhh….oh god… oh my god…" I know scratching his back is a NO because that's gonna leave evidence but I can't help myself.

I want him deeper though. I want to be able to feel him so deep…I want to remember this. I hold him against my body and wrap my legs around his waist. His face is in the crook of my neck and his tongue is sliding all over my neck while he's drawing back and thrusting inside me at an even, rough pace. I curl my fingers through his hair and moan into his shoulder blade. He's grunting while he's thrusting which just means that he's going so hard. I scratch his back again and something inside me just… snaps. It's a shame that I know that scratching backs is a bad thing to do during sex, because it's not the first time that I've had sex with a taken man… Dammit Jo.

Don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying the hell out of this. But I feel so lousy. I feel horrible. I don't want to be expendable to him. I don't want this to be sex. I want this to be love and I know it's not. I didn't think that having sex with him would make him love me or feel for me in the same way I feel for him but I wasn't expecting it to make me feel this shitty. I just don't want to do this anymore. I wanna go home. I don't want this anymore.

This is never gonna happen again. This is a one-time thing and I'm actually nothing more than someone to lay over to him. He has a fiancée that he loves and if he didn't have me tonight, he would've just had her tomorrow. I'm nothing to him. I can't do this anymore. But I can't tell him how I feel because he'll just yell at me for "thinking that this is more than what it is" and we'll end up not speaking again and I don't want that. I'm loving every second of this… I haven't had sex this good in a while. But I really just want this to be over. "…Alex?" I whisper. I close my eyes and purse my lips so tears won't come out. I don't think he heard me…

I'm so damn worthless. Why can't I ever get with someone that loves me? Why can't I be like most normal people and be with a man that cares about me and loves me and doesn't just want sex from me? I wonder what that's like. What's it like to have sex with someone that loves you? What's it like to be with someone that thinks you're beautiful and not just sexy? I just want him. I want him to be with me and only me and I want him to want me as much as I want him and I want him to see me as ME and not just someone that he's having sex with. I want him to care about me…

I don't want to do this anymore… but I'm gonna stick it out at least until he finishes.

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><p><strong>AN: **So, that wasn't nearly as... smutty as I could've made it. I could've made it SO much worse. I kept it rather tame, but I do plan on writing more smut with this story. With that being said, how do you guys feel about use of words like "p-ssy", "d-ck", "c-m", etc.? I wasn't sure if that would've been too dirty or too raunchy so that's why I didn't include those kinds of words in this one. If that wouldn't be too dirty, just let me know. I'll go all out next time once I get feedback of what would be "too dirty" and stuff.**  
><strong>


	21. Messed Up

**A/N: M** rated stuff in this chapter. Reader discretion advised.

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><p>Have I ever mentioned how much I don't like myself? I don't think I have but I'm not totally sure. If I haven't, let me take a minute and do that. I really don't like myself as much as I could. My head is so messed up and mixed up and my judgment is forever clouded. I used to think that my common sense and good judgment problem was just something that happened when it came to having sex with men, but I literally have NONE whatsoever. I'm an enigma to myself. I just don't get how I'm smart enough to be Ivy League material, but I'm so…dumb? I knew better than to have sex with Alex before it even happened yet I still did it. Why? Because I'm dumb.<p>

I'm exhausted, by the way. I'm so tired that I could just pass out and sleep for hours upon hours upon hours on end. I wouldn't mind if this kept going but I'd rather be home in my bed asleep. I think we're done for sure this time but I could be wrong. I don't even know how long we've been at it. I know it's been a long time but I can't pinpoint exactly how long. Longer than an hour, for sure. Because I'm tired and ready to be done for good, I put my head down against his shoulder and sigh. He has his arms wrapped around my body and his hands are resting in the middle of my back. I'm sitting on his lap with our facing him because I just got done riding him. He's sitting with his back against the couch and his feet flat on the floor. My entire body is boiling hot and his fingertips are cold as they trace my spine.

He flexes his arms around my waist and pulls me closer to him, which makes him go deeper inside me when he does that. "Mmm…" That felt amazing so I couldn't hold back a moan. He's gonna try to get me to start up again and I'm way too tired. I want to be done for sure this time. We've been at this for so long that we've taken breaks in between rounds and we've always started back up again. But I'm too exhausted to go another round. I'm too tired to even get off his lap and that's the only reason he's still inside me. I kiss his neck specifically to let him know that I'm still awake and I haven't fallen asleep. His neck is salty from sweat. I'm sure I smell like sex…I've sweat so much in the last few hours. He loosens his grip around my waist making me slip backwards and re-tightens his grip again, pulling me forward and imitating the same rocking motion I was doing five minutes ago while I was riding him. "Ooohh…" I bite on his neck to bear with it because even though I'm tired, it feels so damn good. "I'm tired, okay?" I whisper in his ear.

"You can't be tired yet…" He slides his hands down my back and puts them on my ass. Roughly, he grips my ass and elevates his hips so that for the millionth time tonight, he's all the way inside of me. If there's anything I've learned tonight, it's that he's really into the hardcore stuff. I consider myself as freaky as they come for a girl but he takes it to a totally different level. He put my legs in places I didn't even know my legs could go tonight. He bent my body in positions I didn't even think I could bend my body in. I haven't had sex this good in… ever. "I can still go for another hour." He kisses the underside of my chin and smirks. "You don't want it for another hour?"

_I would loooove to have sex for another hour. But I can't. Dude, don't you ever tire out? _I shake my head and sift my fingers through his damp, sweaty hair. He takes one hand off my ass and brings it around to the front of my body. I know what he's doing and he's about to make me freak out on him. He's done this ALL night. Every time I act like I want to be done, he does this and he gets me all excited and happy and glad to go another round with him. And just like I knew he would, he sits still while he's still in me and uses his hand to palm and tease my clit. I really can't go another round with him. I would totally fall asleep in the middle of it or something. I'm exhausted but he does this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. He did it when I was feeling shitty at first and I tried to stop it then. He did it again when he put my legs on his shoulder, he did it again when he was behind me…he's been doing this to me all night. But I'm serious this time. I'm way too tired. I yawn and pull my face out of his neck. I lean over (while he's still inside) and grab my cell phone off the arm of the couch. He's still playing with me with his hand but I'm trying SO hard to ignore that. It's almost 1:30 in the morning. We've been at this for nearly three hours. "I…" He teases me really fast with his thumb. "Alex!" I can't help but squirm around while he's doing that to me. "I have to go home…"

"No you don't." He stops playing around with his hand and puts it back around my waist. "It's still early." He holds me secure around my waist and lays me back down against the couch and somehow, he manages to keep himself inside of me while we switch positions. He forces my legs open with his hips and leans down to kiss me on my lips. "And you're still wet… what kind of man would I be to let that go to waste?" He sits back up and hooks his arms around my legs, making them bend at the knee. Every position he put me in tonight was thought out and that was a huge turn on. We did it in every position you could think of and none of them were uncomfortable for me. My eyelids flutter shut as he starts to thrust again. He's using the grip around my legs to pull me towards him while he thrusts, which drives me insane.

Like most of the positions he put me in tonight, his rough, hard, jerky thrusts make my boobs move with his movements. It didn't bother me all night but for some reason, I don't want him to be looking down on them this time so I hold them still with my hands. I don't know, I was just thinking how disappointing it must be for him to move to my average-sized boobs when he's used to his fiancée's above-average ones. "Uh…. Uhh…." I feel kind of ridiculous when I moan with him but he told me during our second break between rounds that my moan was pretty… but still. "Oh… fuck…" He slows down and makes one deep…deep thrust. "Oh god!"

He lets my legs go and lies flat against me, kissing my neck while he's still pumping in and out but at a much slower pace this time. From everything we've done tonight, I'm able to tell when he's about to bust. I've learned that when he starts to slow up a little bit, he's close. He's done good with pulling out all night too, so this time is no different. He takes it out and does his business right on my lower stomach. He possesses a lot of restraint too because I don't know many guys that are able to keep going up until RIGHT before it. Most guys have to pull out and finish themselves off when they're close but he doesn't. He's able to stay in up until the second he busts. He's pretty nice about it, too. He's consistently wiped it off me with his shirt every time he's done it tonight. He forcefully kisses my lips and plunges his tongue deep in my mouth. "…Now we can be done."

I slide my hands inside his and hold them. "Okay." One last time, I slide my hands through his hair and stare at him. I'm extremely satisfied… but I wish we had made love. I wish it was slow and all passionate and stuff with lots of kisses and cuddles afterwards. It was far from love though. It was hard, rough…porn-star sex. Not lovemaking. I guess I'm proud of myself for sticking it out though. I really didn't think I was gonna last that long. I thought I was gonna quit after the first twenty minutes but I lasted like two and a half hours without crying and feeling shitty. High-five to me.

He takes his hand out of mine and sits up. I guess I should get dressed and go home now, like the side chick I am. I wish I could go upstairs and take a shower and lay down with HIM. I don't want to have to be nothing but a whore that gets dressed and goes home when he's done with me. Nevertheless, I bend down and rummage through the pile of clothes on the floor for my things. I find my thong and slide it back on. I hook my bra around my chest and put it back on. I grab my yoga pants and yank them on. I pop my sweater back on over my head and shove my feet in my socks. He only puts on his boxers. I swipe my ponytail holder off the coffee table and yank my nasty, greasy, sweaty hair up in a ponytail. I stomp my feet into my boots and pick up my cell phone.

He flips the light on and my eyes burn a little bit. He could've kept it dark in here. He really didn't have to turn the lights on and make me look at him. The couch cushions are all pushed out and there's a wet mark on the middle cushion, probably from me. I didn't do my special little talent tonight but only because he didn't make me. The sex was good and all but I don't do that very often. I had so many orgasms tonight that I lost count, but I didn't squirt during them. He has a trail of my bite marks all over his shoulder and when he starts to clean up, I see welts and red scratch marks all over his back. I push a piece of my bangs that I didn't get up in the ponytail away from my face and grab my car keys. I side-step the coffee table and head for the front door.

"Hey…" He stops me just as I'm about to walk out the door. I give him a half-assed, fake smile and stop walking for a moment. "I'll see you at work tomorrow?" I nod my head. He just looks at me like I'm the most pitiful thing he's ever seen. I'm finding it increasingly hard to look him in his eye but if I look away, I'm gonna start bawling. "Night, Jo."

"…Night." I put my hand on the doorknob but stop myself again for a second. "… And thanks." I mumble. He looks at me with a clueless look on his face. "For everything tonight…" I elaborate. Am I really thanking him for orgasms? I think I am. He just nods. I open up the front door and dash out of it. It's pouring down raining. Good, so I don't have to feel so bad about crying. I can just act like my tears are raindrops. I slide my phone inside my bra to prevent it from getting wet since I don't have pockets and walk aimlessly to my car. I don't even care that I'm getting soaking wet. I open up my car door and sit down in the driver's seat. I slam my head down so hard against the steering wheel that I'm sure I just knocked myself silly but maybe I knocked some common sense in me as well. As if I haven't been making enough high-pitched noises tonight, when I start crying, I uncontrollably start WAILING.

He probably won't talk to me again. He probably won't even say a word to me again unless it pertains to us having more sex. I just gave him what he wanted…what other reason would he have to talk to me again? Stupid, stupid, stupid. STUPID.

I just wanna go the hell home.

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><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

With a black garbage bag in my hand, I walk around the living room throwing away the things that need to be thrown away from tonight. I toss Jo's can of Pepsi into the trash bag as well as my bottle of beer. I toss my shirt in the trash too because even though I own a washer and a dryer of course, I'll never be able to look at this shirt and not be able to think about Jo. Is it bad that I kind of knew that it was gonna happen tonight? I had a feeling that it was gonna happen and when I saw her at the restaurant, the feeling got stronger. I was fighting it but I was—and still am, just so tired of fighting. I'm tired of fighting the feelings I have for her. I'm tired of acting like I don't think about Jo like I used to think about Izzie. No, the way I think about Jo is different than I used to think about Izzie actually. I care about Jo's feelings. I care if she's upset, scared, hurt, mad at me. I care about how she's doing. I care pretty deeply for Jo, but caring isn't enough. It's not enough to care for her. Caring for her isn't gonna surpass the love I think I still have for Iz.

I can't stop thinking about her and that's dangerous. That's how I can usually tell when I'm falling for someone; when I can't stop thinking about them. I've had sex with lots of girls in my day and I've had lots of one night stands…but that's not what just happened. What just happened wasn't just a lay. I can't stop thinking about her. And it doesn't help that she's probably the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. This would be so much easier if she was ugly or a bitch or something like that, but she's not. She's gorgeous and she's got an awesome personality in addition to all of that. Her eyes… the prettiest brown eyes I've EVER seen.

I wish Jo could just find somebody. I wish she would find someone that isn't me. Someone that makes her happy and treats her right and makes her feel special. I need her to find somebody that way I can stop messing with her. Essentially, that's what I'm doing. I'm MESSING with her. I know very well that I could never be with her and I'm giving her all this bullshit and false hope and I need to stop. But I can't stop. I can't stop, that's the thing. When I'm with Jo… I'm happy. She makes me happy and I don't feel like I have to try around her. I like being around her, that's why I can't stop. And if she actually did find somebody… I don't know if I'd like that too much.

I'm waiting for this to feel wrong. I'm waiting to regret what I just with…and to Jo. I'm waiting to hate myself for being weak in the moment and doing it but it's not happening. The only thing I'm hating myself for is the fact that someone's gonna hate me. If I stick through it and stay with Izzie and marry her like I'm planning to, Jo's gonna hate me and I'm gonna hurt her. But if I ditch Izzie and see what Jo has to offer… Izzie's gonna hate me. And I don't want to feel like I went through everything with Izzie for no reason. I just don't want either one of these girls to hate me but I have a decision to make. I have a decision to make because I can't keep stringing Jo along for the hell of it and I can't keep cheating on Izzie with her. I'm an ass, but I'm not that big of an ass to the point that I would hurt somebody as awesome as Jo and keep cheating on my fiancée.

I'm really starting to wish that I had never met Jo. I wish I never met her, I wish she never came to Seattle and I wish she wasn't even an intern. I wish she would just disappear. Everything was so damn good before she showed up. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. Me and Izzie have always fought pretty badly and that wasn't perfect. We've had our fair share of hardcore fights. But I didn't start to question myself until Jo came around. I didn't start to wonder if I really do love Izzie until she came.

After I finish cleaning up the living room and turning the couch cushions over, I go upstairs to take a shower and go to bed because I have to go to work tomorrow morning. It's not until I bend down to take off my boxers that I realize I had a tear in my eye. Just one tear, though. I don't cry much…and I don't know why I just shed a tear. Maybe because I'm disappointed in myself, but disappointment isn't really new to me. I disappoint myself a lot. I was born a disappointment….so why would I cry over being a disappointment? Whatever.

I start the shower water and look in the mirror before I get inside it. I have a trail of little bite marks from my neck down to my shoulder blade. She bit me when she felt like she was screaming too loud. I had to tell her a bunch of times that nobody else was home and she could scream if she wanted to scream and so she did scream… but when she felt like she was being too loud, she would bite me. It wasn't a hard bite…but it was hard enough to leave marks. I told her that her moan and her cries of pleasure were easily the sexiest and the prettiest things I've ever heard in my life but she didn't believe me. But they were. She kind of sounded like she was singing or something when she'd moan; that's how melodious it was.

I turn to the side so that I can see my back in the mirror and there are so many welts and scratches on my back. They're gonna be a bitch to explain to Izzie. Iz doesn't scratch my back. I liked that about Jo. I always knew when I was deep because she'd scratch my back. I always knew when I was going hard enough to make her climax because she'd dig her nails in and scream to the high heavens. I was a little hesitant to say it at first, but I'll admit it now. That was the best sex I've ever had in my life. I've had A LOT and I do mean A LOT of sex in my life but that was the BEST. She wasn't joking when she said that she could back her shit talking up because she CAN.

She let me do whatever I wanted to do to her. If I wanted to put her legs on my shoulders, she let me. If I wanted to do it from the back, she let me. She let me put her legs over her head, she let me put her against the wall of the living room, she let me do ANYTHING. The only thing we didn't do was give each other oral and I think that goes back to the conversation we had about not giving random people oral. Secretly though, I would've gone down on her. I trust her enough to know that she's not dirty and I know that she's clean and I really care enough about her to make her the third girl in my life I've ever gone down on. Jo isn't just a random girl to me and that wasn't just sex to me. It was amazing, mind-blowing sex yes…but it wasn't just an easy lay to me. I hope she knows that.

I'm so glad that Iz isn't home. It's not that I don't want to see her; it's just that I can't face her right now. I can't face her after doing what I just did. I wouldn't even know what to say…I wouldn't even know how to apologize. I need a few hours before I face her. I feel horrible.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"She thinks she can just sit there because she's so good. Who needs time in the Skills Lab when you came from Harvard Medical, right?" I grit my teeth and roll my eyes when I hear that. I'm in a shitty mood, I'm not death and I CAN hear you despite the lockers being in our way. "She's just here to make the rest of us look bad. She came from HARVARD…she could've gone to any hospital in the country but she picks Seattle Grace?" They're talking shit because they're jealous. About ten minutes ago, Dr. Grey came in the locker room and announced that I get to perform the annual intern appendectomy because I've been the best intern she's seen so far and they're pissed because they wanted it. For what it's worth, I don't even want the damn appendectomy. I'm so not in the mood today. I'm irritated with myself and the situation that I put myself in last night and I'm tired because I didn't sleep. Irritation and tiredness don't mix very well for Jo and she's not in a good mood. Fuck the Skills Lab. Why would I go spend time practicing for a surgery I don't want? Fuck the appendectomy, fuck me, fuck Alex, fuck this hospital and fuck everyone in this locker room.

"She's just uppity and never had to work for anything in her life. I bet she expects for the appendix to take itself out when she gets in there." I've never spoken to these girls since I've been here. I think their names are Stacy, Tina and Irene and the only reason I remember that is because I actually am pretty good with names. How uppity and stuck up would I be if I beat the shit out of all three of them? I'm really not in the mood for any bullshit today. I'm in the worst mood and if they don't stop talking…

"Steph, what's going on with her? Why is she just sitting there?" Leah whispers to Steph but she doesn't whisper very well because I heard her. "You think she can hear them talking about her?"

"Oh she can hear them alright." Steph answers her. "She's been in a bad mood all morning and she won't tell me why."

"You think she's gonna say something to them or should we?" Shane chimes in and asks Steph like she's The Jo Whisperer or something. _Well, she does know me better than anyone in this locker room. _

"Nah, Jo's pretty chill. She doesn't snap out and she's not real confrontational. She probably won't say anything." Steph says. Well she's wrong about that. Jo's not pretty chill, Jo does snap out and while Jo's not confrontational, Jo will fuck somebody up with the way she's feeling right now. I could literally kill someone right now. I'm so fucking crazy I swear. I'm crazy and nobody in this locker room knows that. I'm gonna fuck somebody up if I don't get out of here.

I don't want these people to see me in rare form, so I stand up from the spot on the bench I've been sitting in since I got dressed. I storm past Steph, Heather, Leah and Shane and go straight for the door. "Oh look… I think she's going to the Lab. Maybe she finally got a clue." One of the members of my fan club mumbles under her breath and that's IT. I swear that's IT.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP." I spin around and face the three of them. Steph's jaw dropped and I don't even care right now. I swear I'm in a shitty mood and I tried so hard to be cordial with people but I can't be around people today. I need to go home. Give the intern appy to somebody else because I can't be around people today. I'm in a fucked up mood and my head is not in the right mindset to deal with anyone's bullshit today. The one named Tina opens her mouth like she's about to run it and I shut her down. "NO, DON'T SAY SHIT. DON'T SAY ANYTHING. JUST SHUT UP. SHH." I put my finger to my mouth and say it again. "SHHHH! DON'T TALK."

"Whose mother do you think you are? I'm a grown ass woman and I'll talk whenever I want to." She says anyway, despite my warnings. That's what that was. That was a warning for her to shut up. I wasn't being smart and I wasn't being an asshole. I was telling her to SHUT UP if she knew what was good for her. "I don't know who the hell you think you're talking to but you don't get to just talk to me any kind of way just because you came from a richy rich, uppity ass—"

I can't control myself when I get mad like this and I tried to warn her so since she didn't fucking listen to me when I told her to SHUT UP, I have to interrupt her with a single, solid, punch to her face. I bawl my hand up into a fist so tight that my knuckles turn red, draw back pretty far and put all my weight into the punch, which lands straight on the bridge of her nose. I hit her HARD too, because she falls down like I just punched a brown paper bag and I have blood on my hand.

"OH MY GOD, JO!" Leah screams at me while Steph grabs me by my ponytail because I'm going AFTER this bitch. "JO, NO! STOP!" Shane's holding me back along with Stephanie while Leah's screaming at me to stop and Heather's in the background laughing hysterically.

"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP! I TOLD YOU TO STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT ME AND TO ME! DON'T OPEN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! I'M NOT IN THE MOOD!" I push Steph away so hard that she falls back against the lockers and I'm sorry for that but NOBODY can touch me when I'm like this. "SHANE GET OFF." I push my elbow back into his stomach but he's a man and he's harder to move than Steph is. "I WILL BANG THAT BITCH'S HEAD OFF EVERY FUCKING LOCKER IN THIS ROOM I SWEAR TO GOD."

I'm so emotionally fucked up right now that I can't control anything. I can't control my anger, my sadness, my irritation. I can't control shit. Having sex with Alex last night really fucked with my emotions so bad and I really didn't want to take it out on anybody today but she kept testing me and I tried to tell her to leave me alone. The poor girl isn't even attempting to fight me back, that's the sad part. Instead, she's lying on the ground holding her nose while Stacy went to get help and Irene is trying to help her out. "You're crazy!" She screams at me. "You broke her nose!" _Okay, and? I don't give a shit?_

Stacy comes back into the locker room with Dr. Torres, which really just irritates the FUCK out of me. _I'm not gonna kill your friend, you didn't have to go get help you dumb bitch. _"Wilson, take a walk! Take a walk!" Torres screams at me. I take a deep breath, shake the blood off my hand and leave the locker room. I told everyone not to mess with me today.

I'm just not in the right mindset and I haven't been ever since last night.


	22. Mind Made Up

I didn't get any sleep last night. I'm not in a bad mood because of it; I'm just too tired to function without coffee at the moment. Not sleeping doesn't really make me cranky like it does most people. It just makes me sluggish. I need to know if Robbins has me scheduled to scrub in on any surgeries today because if she doesn't, I'm finding the nearest on call room and passing out for an hour or so. I was too busy thinking last night to fall asleep and plus, I was hungry. When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's nearly impossible to sleep. I was thinking about everything under the sun last night too. I was thinking about work, the wedding, what I'm gonna eat today at lunch and what I'm gonna do at work today. I was thinking about all of that last night but mostly, I was stuck thinking about this pretty brown eyed girl that was lying underneath of me last night.

I pull open the door to the residents lounge and go straight over to the table that Mere, Cristina and April are sitting at. I pull out a chair on the end of the left side of the table and plop down. April's reading some kind of pregnancy magazine, Cristina's staring down at a tin of chocolate chip cookies and Mere is reading one of her mother's journals it looks like. I swipe a cookie from the tin Cristina's hoarding and break it in half to make it easier for me to stuff it in my mouth. I'm still hungry from last night because I couldn't even eat when Izzie got home this morning. I felt too guilty to eat. I felt kind of bad that I didn't eat because she came home after a long shift and baked these muffins and I couldn't even stomach one. I put my head down on the table and stuff a half of the cookie in my mouth.

Cristina looks up at me and I know she's about to pull some snide remark on me like she always does. I'm just not in the mood to hear anything from her today. I love her and Mere both to death but I feel like if they knew what I did last night, they'd be super disappointed in me and I don't need that because I'm already disappointed in myself. "You look like death…holy shit." I'm not sure if that was an exclamation of care or mockery. Mere puts down her mom's journal and glares at me. "Evil spawn… what's wrong?" Kepner peeks over the edge of the magazine, looks at me and puts it back up. See, that's one thing I like about April. She doesn't poke her nose in people's business too often.

"Alex? You alright?" Mere pokes me with her index finger like I'm a dead body. "You got that stomach bug that's been going around?" I didn't even know there was a stomach bug going around. Regardless, no I don't have a stomach bug. I have a guilty conscience bug…has that been going around too? "How the hell are we supposed to help you if you won't talk to us?" _Maybe because you can't help me_. The only person that can help me right now is me and I'm not even sure if I can help me. I don't even pick my head up to acknowledge the fact that she's talking to me and she just poked me. "Alex."

I sigh and pick my head up. "What? Can't a man be tired around here?" I shove the other half of cookie in my mouth and lean back in the chair I'm sitting in. I can't tell them what I did last night and even if I could, I wouldn't tell them right now with Kepner listening. I like April and all but I'm not sure I trust her enough with my business yet. I know I'm in deep shit because not even Mere and Cristina can help me out. I need more than advice right now. I need a fucking miracle. "I didn't sleep much." I mumble and put my head right back down in the position it was in a second ago. Kepner's pager starts going off and she grabs a cookie from the tin, puts her magazine down on the table and hurries off out of the lounge. Was that a sign from God or something? I was just thinking about how I can't talk to Mere and Cristina because she's in the room and she coincidentally gets paged out and leaves? Was that a sign?

Mere and Cristina take my "I didn't sleep much" excuse in stride and leave me alone. I'm at a little bit of a dead end here. Do I confide in them or do I keep it to myself? They're my best friends in the world but Jo's one of my best…people as well. I can't even refer to her as my friend anymore because I sound like an asshole when I say that. You don't have sex for two and a half hours straight with your friend. The friendship boat between me and Jo has sailed and sunk at this point. It went down like the Titanic. Anyway, the point is that while Mere and Cristina are my best friends, Jo is an important person as well and I don't know if she'd be mad at me for telling people. I'm trying to think about what she'd do. She's pretty close with Edwards… did she tell Edwards? If she told Edwards, she'd understand if I told Mere and Cristina. But I just don't know if she told Edwards or not…

"Guys, pick. Me or Izzie?" I pick my head back up and groan. I have a headache from not sleeping. I need to lie down for a little while. Mere puts her mom's journal back down and looks at me, Cristina drops the cookie she was about to eat and looks at me too. They don't think I'm serious. "I'm serious guys. Me or Izzie? And you can be honest. I just have to know." If they choose me then I'll tell them. If they pick Izzie, I won't. I just can't have them running back and telling Izzie what I say because of some freaky girl-code or whatever. They're still looking at me like my head is on fire. "NOW. Before I get old!" I snap at them but I have to remember that they're my friends and in the end, they're gonna look out for me. I stop with the yelling.

"You mean like… in terms of friends?" Cristina asks.

"No, I mean if me and Izzie were to break up or something, whose side would you be on?"

"Team Alex for sure." Mere answers as soon as I give her the clarity. "I'd rather see you happy than her and that's just me being honest. After all the crap she's put you through, I'd rather see you happy than her. And don't tell her I said that…I'll just deny it if you do. But I'm team Alex for sure." She shuts the journal she was reading and looks directly at me. "Why? Are you guys breaking up?"

"No." I mumble. "I don't know…maybe." I admit. "And this isn't just cold feet about the wedding so don't give me any of that crap." I warn them before I start spilling my guts. "I cheated on her."

Mere gasps and shakes her head. "Alex… Alex, no… you didn't." She looks like she's disappointed in me and that's exactly what I DIDN'T want. Cristina doesn't say anything but she doesn't need to because I already know how she feels about cheating. Owen cheated on her a few months back and she was heartbroken over it. She's judging the hell out of me and that's rightfully so. "It was with Wilson, wasn't it?" I look down at the ground and just nod. "Oh Alex… why? Why? That's gonna destroy her. If…if Izzie finds out… it's gonna kill her."

"What were you thinking!? You KNOW what cheating does to a relationship!" Cristina takes her turn to yell at me about it. "It ruins trust, it destroys the girl! What were you thinking?! And with an INTERN? Come on Alex… I thought you were gonna be different. You told us that you were changed and you weren't like your old self. Sleeping with interns screams OLD ALEX to me."

"WHY, though? WHY? I thought you and Iz were happy! I mean I know you guys fight a lot but every couple does. I thought you guys were doing good though." Mere seems really upset with me. Damn. "I knew you two getting married wasn't a good idea. I knew it. She wasn't over George and you're not ready to settle down. I knew it was a mistake. We all tried to tell you but you didn't wanna listen. No, you wanted to rush into it."

"Right. If you weren't ready you shouldn't have even asked. Neither one of you are ready for marriage. She doesn't even love you Alex…and it's clear that you don't love her. And don't say you do because if you did love Izzie, you wouldn't have even thought twice about Ponytail McGee."

I mentioned before that I'm not big on crying. I'm not a crier and I never have been. But I can't even hold my tears back right now. I'm just so mixed up. Okay, let's say that Cristina's right. Let's say that she's right and I don't love Izzie. Then what the hell do I do? Mere's wrong. I am ready to settle down. I'm ready to settle down and have children and get married…I'm ready. And I thought I was ready with Iz. I bury my face in my hands and take a deep breath. "I'm not happy guys. I haven't been happy." That actually hurts to admit it but it's the truth. "I just felt like… I just felt like she was the one. I felt like she was the one for me and so I popped the question. It was impulsive and it was a huge mistake. But then she got sick and I couldn't break up with her while she was sick… and I'm stuck." I sniff and wipe my eyes hard before I take my hands away from my face. Alright. No more crying. I'm done with that shit. "But I wasn't even confused until I met Jo."

"Then you never really loved her. If someone can just come along and make you question yourself, you never really loved her." Cristina softens a bit which is hard to get her to do and puts her hand against my shoulder. She sighs like she really doesn't want to give in but she does. "…Does Ponytail McGee make you happy?"

"Yeah, does she?" Mere puts her hand on my shoulder as well. See, this is exactly why I knew I could tell them. I was hesitant to but I knew that they'd come around. Mere and Cristina are always on my side and that's what really matters. They set me straight, keep my head on my shoulders and they let me know when I'm fucking up. I like how they yelled at me (because in all honesty, I deserve to be yelled at) but in the end, they really are Team Alex. That's why they're my best friends. "Can you seriously see yourself being with Jo? Does she make you happy? You've known her for what, a month? Are you sure you're not just lusting after Jo?"

"Put it this way…" I sigh again. "I was happier when Izzie was gone two weeks ago than I am now when she's here…and Jo has nothing to do with that. I lost the flame for Iz a while back but… I was just forcing it to be there, you know? I stopped feeling that spark I felt for Izzie before I even knew Jo existed. I forced it to be there because… I don't wanna be alone. I don't wanna be alone and I don't wanna be the jerk that dumps his fiancée when she's sick. I forced it to be there when it really wasn't because I was being selfish but… I have Jo now. And Jo's a sure thing and Jo means that I don't have to be alone. And now that the time's come for me to break it off with Izzie…I can't. 'Cause I don't want her to hate me. I don't want her to hate me."

"Well Alex, if you're not happy… and you haven't been…" Mere pats my shoulder. "I just don't want you to get hurt. And I don't want you to wake up ten years from now realizing you made a mistake. If you're not happy and Jo makes you happy then what are you waiting for?"

"What's so great about her anyway?" Cristina asks.

"…What's not great about her?" I mumble. I've done a lot of self-discovery within the last twenty minutes of talking to Mere and Cristina. Like I finally admitted to myself what the real problem with me and Izzie is…and it's that I forced myself to love her when the love really wasn't there. And I realized that I feel differently about Jo than I feel about Izzie. I don't think I ever felt all happy and butterfly-ish when I talked about Izzie like I feel when I'm talking about Jo. I think I might've fallen for her and I never planned to. Is it even possible to fall for someone over the course of a month? "She's… she's gorgeous, for one. And she's perfect in all aspects of the word. Her personality… she just makes me laugh. I laugh more than I talk while I'm with her. And she…"

"You really do love her." Cristina pokes her lip out. "Awww…evil spawn…"

Just as we wind down our conversation, Torres comes inside the residents lounge which is weird because she's an attending so she's usually in the attendings lounge. So I feel a little bit better from talking to Mere and Cristina but not much better. They helped me make a decision but I'm not sure if it's concrete or not. I think I'm gonna end up ending things with Izzie before we spend any more money on the wedding. I think I'm gonna give Jo a try. I'm gonna see about dating Jo for a while just to test the waters. I'm not sure if that's actually gonna happen but that's the decision I'm leaning towards right now. I just have to figure out how to break things off with Izzie while still keeping things affable between us. The last thing I want is Jo and Izzie to be at each other's throats over someone like me. I don't think I'm worth all of that.

"Hey Grey…you got another intern in mind for the appy? Bailey told me to ask you." Torres sounds unamused as she's looking down at her cell phone, not even looking at Mere while she's talking to her. Torres is one of the nice attendings but she can be a real bitch at times. I try not to mess with her too tough though because she _does _break bones for a living and she could probably snap my neck with her bare hands. "The interns are all up in a tizzy right now. There's one with a broken nose and the one asked to be sent home."

"Wait, what happened to MY intern? I requested Wilson for a reason. She's the only one that shows some damn initiative." Mere stands up and grabs her pager.

"Yeah, YOUR intern is holed up in the tunnels somewhere because she just broke a girl's nose with one punch." My jaw drops. Jo broke someone's nose?! HOW?

I stand up and push my chair in. I gotta go see if she's okay.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"You wanna tell me what that was about or are we still gonna play the silent game?" We're sitting on a gurney in the tunnels and Steph's letting me lay on her lap while she plays with my hair. We've been lying like this for about ten minutes straight and now is the first time we've broken the silence. I'm feeling a lot better than I was like half an hour ago. I'm still in the worst mood I've been in in a very long time but it's getting better. Part of my bad mood has been explained though. After I punched Tina in the face, I went straight to the bathroom when Dr. Torres told me to go take a walk. I felt something drip between my legs and I had to page Steph to the bathroom so she could lend me a tampon. Something else happened in the bathroom that I started to panic about but then I got my period and I'm fine about it now. I panicked for no reason. "If you punch people in the face every time you PMS, can you let me know?"

My eyes are closed as she's messing around with my hair. She's been braiding it and taking it out over and over again and it feels good…it's also been helping me chill out. That punch wasn't about me PMSing it was about me being so fed up with everyone and their bullshit. "I just had a heart attack in the bathroom." I mutter under my breath and put my hand on my stomach because of course, I have cramps. "I squatted over the toilet to take a piss and before I even noticed that I started my period, I felt something pop outta me." I open my eyes and look up at her. "My Mirena fell out. I was like… Steph, my entire body went cold." Like I said though, I panicked for no reason at all. First off, I can't be pregnant because Alex did really good with pulling out last night, you can't get pregnant when your period is right around the corner and I'm ON my period. "I'm not pregnant but still… scared the shit outta me."

"So that's why you punched her? Because you were scared that you could be pregnant?" She presses her fingers against my temple and smooths my hair back. "If Jason got you pregnant, you would've been known already. You would be like… three weeks along. You didn't actually think you were pregnant did you?"

"No I told you that I was in a bad mood. I punched her because I'm in such a foul ass mood." I close my eyes again. "I had sex with Alex last night." I put my hand up against her mouth so she doesn't say anything about it. "Before you start going off on a tirade about it, I KNOW. I know he's engaged and stuff and I know it shouldn't have happened but it did. I have poor judgment and I'm a dumbass so spare me that lecture. I know Steph…okay?" I take my hand away. "That's why I'm in a bad mood. I'm mad at myself for having sex with him and my emotions are all over the place today… and the fact that I came on my period didn't help. Anybody could've gotten punched today…Tina just happened to catch it."

"…You did WHAT with him? Jo… you've gotta stop that." She shakes her head and I roll my eyes hard at her. I told her to spare me the lecture. "Don't roll those big bug-eyes at me. You know I'm telling the truth. You gotta stop that. You know that's all he wanted and you gave it to him. You need to learn your worth."

"Oh my god, I knooooow Stephanie. I know." I put my hands over my face and take a breather. "It started out as just kissing but it went to touching and touching went to fingering and fingering went to actual sex and the actual sex went to two and a half hours." I sigh and suck on my bottom lip. "I was gonna stop it after the first round but it was so good. I haven't had sex that good in my entire life, I couldn't stop it. My legs were shaking and all that good stuff, so I just kept going. I swear I had every intention on stopping after round one."

"You guys went rounds?" She asks. I nod. "You guys had sex for two and a half hours? What are you two, freaks of nature? I can barely last half an hour."

"It was crazy Steph. It was like… he was on top at first for like ten minutes and I came, whatever. He pulled out and came too so I was like alright, I'm going home now. Sorry this happened but it's time for me to leave. But he grabbed me and made me lay down on the couch again and round one turned to round two and round two turned to round three and… orgasm after orgasm after orgasm…. I couldn't leave." I reach up and touch some of Steph's hair. I wish I had curly hair like hers.

"Was it all romantic and passionate?" She smiles because she's perverted like me and she wants details. I'll press her for details in a minute because I know she got laid last night as well. I'm not sure who she got laid by, but she came home last night and got straight in the shower. On the bright side, we both got laid last night.

"It totally wasn't. Try… rough. Ass-slapping, hair-pulling, screaming, cussing, hardcore porn-star sex. Try that." I sit up and cross my legs as I sit next to her. "I wish it was slower. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing. It was so freaking good Steph and I could've gone all night if he would've let me rest up a little. But I do wish it was slow and easier at some point. I wouldn't have cared if he would've just acted like he wanted to make love to me." I sigh and clear my throat to switch tactics because I don't even want to talk about that anymore. I'm done crying over Alex, I swear I am. I'm sick of crying over him. We had sex, I was his booty-call, it is what it is. No sense in crying over a man that doesn't want me. "How about you? Who'd you sleep with last night?"

"Old college boyfriend. You don't know him."

"Yeah? Good for you." I shrug. "It's not fair that I'm the only one that's been getting laid around here."

"HEY JO!" Someone screams my name from down the hall and I jump…clear out of my skin. Oh please don't tell me someone's coming to fire me. Dr. Torres came to see me in the bathroom and she told me that I wasn't gonna lose my job over this because everyone has bad days. She said I wasn't gonna get fired as long as I took at least an hour to cool down. I lean forward on the gurney to look and see who's yelling for me. It's Alex…thank the high heavens it's him and not the chief. I look at Steph and she smirks at me. I shake my head at her. She's implying that he wants to have sex again and while she's probably right, there are about a million reasons why I'm not gonna roll over and have sex with him again.

"I'll leave you two to your business." Steph winks at me and hops down off the gurney. I wave at her and sigh. I'm not in the mood to deal with him today either. If he hadn't seen me before I seen him, I would've gotten off this gurney and ran away. I don't think I'm ready to face him yet. I watch Steph as she disappears down the hall and around a corner while Alex comes closer and closer to me.

He has really dark bags under his eyes and his hair looks like he hasn't properly combed it since I was busy pulling it and running my fingers through it last night. _Baby… _I just wanna hug him. I want to hug him and let him lay down on me while I stroke his hair as he falls asleep. I wanna treat him like my baby. "What are you doing , going around punching people?" I look down and pretend to be picking at my fingernails. I shrug my shoulders. "You can't just go around punching people. What's wrong with you?" I honestly can't believe he's talking to me. I thought for sure he was done with me unless it had to deal with us sleeping with each other again. I shrug my shoulders again. "What the hell, Jo?"

I stop picking my nails and look at him. "I just can't believe you're actually talking to me." I say with a really smart tone. "You know…after you basically put me out last night." He looks at me with a really confused look on his face. "Not a kiss goodnight, not a hug goodnight…nope. Just a wave."

"…What did you want me to do? I couldn't invite you upstairs to go to sleep… I have a fiancée that was gonna be home in the morning. I wasn't gonna make you sleep on the couch…"

A smile spreads across my face but not because I'm happy. I'm smiling because I'm BEYOND irritated. He can be the next person to get punched in the face today. "Of course… you have a fiancée. How could I forget, right?"

"You're being weird." He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down. "I told you I was gonna talk to you at work today… did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?" I roll my eyes at him. "What did I do?"

"Nothing Alex." I stand up off the gurney. "I'm tired. I didn't sleep last night and I'm just really sleepy. And I'm not in a good mood." I slide past him and start walking down the hallway to go find Dr. Grey and see if she still wants me to do that appendectomy this afternoon. As I'm walking, Alex grabs my arm and pulls me back towards him. "Get off! I'm SO done with you." I pull away from him but he tightens his hold on me. "Stop! You don't have to pretend like you care about me! I'm so done with this. I can't keep—" He shuts me up with a soft kiss on my lips.

He pulls out of the kiss and looks at me. "Who's pretending?" He kisses me again, harder this time. "I'm not pretending to care about you…" He puts his hands underneath my butt and lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist like he's asking me and wrap my arms around his neck so he doesn't drop me. "Last night? Last night was amazing… and if I didn't have someone to answer to, I swear to God… I would've loved nothing more than to take you up to my bed. I wouldn't mind waking up to those pretty brown eyes in the morning." He kisses me on my cheek. "There's no pretending here." He slides his hand up to the middle of my back because he's so strong that he literally only needs one arm to hold me. "I couldn't wait to see you this morning."

"…Are you free for an hour or two?" I put my forehead against his and lock eyes with him. He nods as he puckers his lips out to kiss me again. "Why don't we go to an on call room and do the whole… cuddling after sex thing now?"

"I can dig that. You wanna start out on top?"

"Nope." I smile at him. "I kinda wanna sleep… we can't do it again. At least not this week." I stare at his eyes, just enjoying this moment. "It's… shark week."

"Yeah well… I could use a nap too." He puts me down on my feet and grabs my hand. "Let's go."

"Wait… you're really okay if we don't… have sex?" I hold onto his hand and play with his fingers. "We really don't have to?"

"I told you… last night was… special." He strokes my knuckles. "Come on, let's go take a nap."

"…Yeah, let's." I squeeze his hand and start to walk again.

* * *

><p><strong> AN: ** So, it may seem like the story is starting to wind down, but I assure you that it isn't. I've gotten a couple PMs and reviews questioning how long I'm going to make this story and I honestly can't say that for sure. I still have a lot of things I hope to cover in this story and there's a storyline that I'm planning on doing that'll probably take about 10+ chapters to do it correctly. And if you've been wondering, no, Jo is not gonna interrupt Izzie and Alex's wedding like Jackson did to April's. I have BIG things in store for Jo (and Alex too but mostly Jo) that don't include interrupting a wedding.

Oh, and I've also gotten a couple questions about the title of the story and I'll tell you yes, I did get the title of the story from the song Just So You Know by Jesse McCartney. I got the idea for the story from the song as well.

And one more thing before I shut up: What's you guys' favorite chapter so far?

Thanks :)


	23. Four Days

**A/N: **Fair warning, this chapter might be a little bit "boring" to you but just know that it's actually pretty important. There won't be any Jolex interaction for the next few chapters because I'm focusing on developing Jo and Alex as individual characters and not just characters that coexist with one another. I feel like I haven't taken the proper steps to develop Jo and Alex as individuals and if I don't take the time to do that, what I'm planning on doing with this story won't make sense. These next couple chapters will be primarily Jo-centric because I'm setting up one of the major plots of the story. These chapters are leading up to a storyline that'll make the entire story and to set it up, I have to describe Jo as a person and get you guys more adept to the way she thinks, feels and handles things. The Alex-centric chapters will come a little bit later but for now, it's all about Jo.

So no real Jolex interaction for about two or three chapters, okay? I want to make it apparent how they cope without each other in a realistic way.

* * *

><p>"I just keep asking myself… you know? And I'm not getting any answers but I just keep on asking myself." I hold my head in my hand and stare out the window at the guard rails we're passing by as we drive. I wasn't going to go at first but the more I thought about it the more I realized that taking some time out of Seattle wouldn't hurt in the least. I need a moment away from everything and everyone. "How come he's able to just move on and be happy? Where the hell is my happiness?" I don't think I ever really realized until now how incredibly grateful I am for Steph. I mean, she must get pretty tired of just listening to me bitch and moan and complain about my problems all the time but she never says anything. She listens with a smile and always gives me the best advice she can offer. I really am happy to have her around.<p>

"Did you really think he was gonna leave her for you? Honestly Jo. Did you believe that?" She flicks on her turn signal and switches from the slow lane of the freeway to the fast lane. Okay I can tell by the tone of her voice that she _is _starting to get fed up with this and it's rightfully so. This is all our conversation has consisted of within the last four days and as much as I wish that I could shut myself up, I can't. I wouldn't talk about it if I could stop thinking about it and I've been thinking about it for days. "I'm not talking about Alex tonight…or at all this weekend. You hear me? I'm not talking about him and neither are you. This weekend isn't about Alex and if I hear you bring him up again I'm going to kick your ass out of my car."

"But Steph…" I sigh. "I can't stop thinking about it. It's literally all I've been thinking about. I just don't get it." I look down at my phone and just slouch down in my seat. I don't want to talk about it anymore and I don't even want to think about it but it's all that's in my head. On Monday when I punched Tina in the face and Alex came to find me in the tunnels, we went to an on-call room to sleep because the both of us were tired from the night before. Long story short, we were asleep when someone started to knock on the door. It was his wife of course, because you know me. NOTHING can ever go right in my life. OF COURSE his wife had to knock on the door (SHE WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON MONDAY) while I was lying down in a bed with her fiancé. Of course.

Anyway, Alex woke me up and he made me hide. Like it was something out of a freaking movie where the wife catches her husband cheating and the cheating husband puts the slutty mistress out before the wife can catch them in the act. Yep, that was me. He sprung up out of the bed, woke me up, shoved me into a blanket closet inside the on-call room and let his wife in to make it seem like I was never in there with him. No warning, no I'm sorry, nothing. Just shoved me in the closet and lied to her through his teeth. And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that he LEFT me in the on-call room by myself. He put his shoes back on and followed her out.

I went to talk to him about it later, after I did the appendectomy that Dr. Grey gave to me. I actually went to go tell him that I fucked up on the appendectomy and Dr. Grey had to step in halfway through it but he directed the conversation to the bullshit that went down earlier in the on-call room. He apologized (insincerely) about what happened and stuff and he went on to explain that the reason his fiancée came into the hospital when she wasn't even supposed to be working was because she was washing the dishes earlier and her hands went numb. She was worried so she came in to get it checked out and Dr. Robbins told her that she could find him in one of the on-call rooms because he was resting up for the surgery he had that afternoon. I guess his wife's cancer is back and that means he wants nothing to do with me again and I'm back to being nothing but a whore to him.

He didn't actually say that he wanted nothing to do with me but I gave him an ultimatum and he basically chose not to be anything to each other. He asked me to settle. He told me that he wasn't gonna abandon Izzie when she was obviously sick again but if I was cool with the sneaking around and occasionally having sex here and there, we could still be…whatever we are to each other. I told him that I wasn't going to be second to anyone because I'm not. Why should I have to come second to him when he comes first to me? So I told him that either I'm everything to him or I'm nothing to him... and I thought…somewhere in my stupid, tiny little brain, I thought that maybe he'd say "okay Jo, I love you and I want you not her" and he didn't. I'm not okay with being his whore. I'm not okay with shit being temporary. I want to be his woman, his everything, his permanent. And since I'm not, we're nothing to each other.

It's been four days since the incident, four days since we've talked to each other and four days since I've been happy. I guess deep down inside my body somewhere I admire him for staying with her. Still, I wish he'd pick me… "We almost there?" I ask just to strike up conversation with her that doesn't include Alex because she seemed genuinely annoyed. The first day I vented to her about it, she was cool with it. She was okay the second day too. By the third day she was still fine but now she doesn't want to hear it anymore. I think I remember her saying something about Olympia being an hour and some change away and if that's true then we're not that close. We've been in the car for about half an hour. _Okay… no Alex for a weekend. I can do that. _

"Just about." Since she's driving a straight shot down the highway, she reaches down and plugs her cell phone into the radio to play some music. Steph's a pretty good driver and I feel safe enough in the car with her to trust that if she doesn't look at the road for a second, she's not gonna kill us. "Find a song." She unlocks her phone and hands it to me. I start scrolling through her music list, scanning for something to listen to. "I told my brother I was bringing my friend from work and he said he's gonna practice his pickup lines… so just keep your guard up okay?"

I snicker and tap my thumb on a song that I want to listen to. Steph must agree with my song choice because she turns it up so loud that the speakers start to bump. "So they know you're bringing me? And they don't care?" I drum my fingers against my kneecap in tune with the song's beat and sing along in my head. _I wish that I could be like the cool kids cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in. I wish that I could be like the cool kids, like the cool kids… _Steph was actually going to leave me home alone for the weekend. I guess her brother made some award thing for his college football team and since it's gonna be nice this weekend, her family is having a barbecue to celebrate it. She told me that I looked depressed and she didn't want to come back after a weekend with her family to find me hung on the shower rod because of Alex and she made me pack my things and get in the car with her.

"I keep telling you they don't care. My mom's all happy to meet you and nobody else will even notice you're there. Trust me, I know my family. You already met my dad once and you met my stepmom. My sister is easy to get along with and my brothers are pervs but you'll be fine. Stop worrying about it." She takes an exit off the highway and drives through this really weird, rural area. We're staying until Sunday I think. It's a little bit late because we didn't leave until we got off work today and the barbecue isn't until tomorrow so we're staying for two days…I think.

"So… what are everyone's names? So I don't get anyone confused." Can I be honest? I'm a little bit nervous to meet Steph's family. I'm nervous because what if they don't like me? What if they get the impression that I'm a stuck up snob like Steph did at first? And I don't do very well with family. I never really had one so I don't know how to act around one.

"My mom's name is Bernice but don't you dare call her that. Call her Lee, everyone does. She hates her name." She glances over at me then back on the road. "My dad is Darryl, like you already know. Stepmom is Lisa." She clears her throat. "Then there's Sterling, Steven and Stewart."

"Wait, Stephanie, Sterling, Steven and Stewart? Nice little…theme going on there."

"Well…" She laughs as though she's never noticed this trend before I just pointed it out. "My oldest brother came first and they liked the name Steven. Then my great grandfather died the day before my sister was born so they named her after him so that's where they got Sterling. I guess they decided to keep it going with Stephanie and Stewart." She shrugs.

"There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's cool. But it's kind of a mouthful…"

"Wait get this…." She stops at a red light and turns to me again. "My brother is Steven Michael, my sister's Sterling Mae, I'm Stephanie Marie and my little brother is Stewart Mason. Tell me how creative my parents are."

"Wow." I actually kind of like that though. How they're all the same? I think it's cool. Then again, I think it's cool how she has siblings in general. I had foster siblings growing up but I never got close to them. It was hard to get close to them when I knew that I wasn't gonna say, you know? And they never really liked me too much because I was the good one and the smart one. Anyway, I think it'd be nice to have blood siblings. At least you have someone when you have blood relatives. "It must've been fun to grow up with a big family though. Do you guys eat like… really big Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners? What do you guys…do?"

"Eh… there was always somebody to play with growing up. It was kind of fun but easy to get forgotten about. I was always my mom's favorite though. I never did anything wrong and I was the good girl. She'd never admit it but it's true. I was her favorite." We're driving through a farmland now which I find strange for still being in Washington. "And the holidays are always packed. We eat dinners at my house because it's the biggest house between all of us. Thanksgiving is the best but Christmas is the most fun. We just do normal family stuff basically."

"…What's that?" I don't know if I'm annoying her or not but I'm genuinely curious.

"I don't know…. the same stuff your family probably does."

"I don't…. have family, Steph." I look out the window and bite my lip. I don't think she really got the concept of me being an orphan. "I never stayed in a foster house longer than three months at a time. I don't… I don't know if my mom had brothers or sisters, I don't know if my dad did either. I don't know what 'normal family stuff' is. I've never even eaten a Christmas or a Thanksgiving dinner."

"You never had a holiday dinner?" She says that like she's reciting the Gettysburg Address word for word, uncertainly. "Never?"

I shake my head at her. "Nobody's thankful for me Steph, don't you get it?" She's kind of making me mad. What the hell does she think that the life of an orphan is like? I had NOBODY…does she get that? "I don't have a mom or a dad or brothers and sisters. I'm my own family. I don't have any blood relatives. I'm not related to anyone. Nobody's thankful for me, I never believed in Santa Claus because there were never any presents under the tree for me. I'm…not like you. I'm sorry that you don't get it but… just know that everything you grew up with, I didn't." I run my fingers through my hair. "I taught myself a lot of things. Things that your mother taught you? I taught myself. Nobody gives a damn about me. I don't have family…. so no, I've never eaten a holiday dinner and I don't know what 'normal family stuff' is."

"….I'm thankful for you, Jo." She reaches over and squeezes my hand. "I never really thought about what it must be like to have nobody. Not a brother, a sister… I never thought about it." She admits. "I just… when you said you're alone, I didn't think you meant…ALONE alone. I thought you at least had somebody to consider family… sorry for that."

"…I had one person." I let my hand rest inside hers. "My home ec teacher from high school. She… she kind of liked me." I smile just thinking about her. I miss her a lot, actually. "She was the only person I told about my whole…living in the car situation. And she used to look out for me. She would make sure I had something to eat every now and again and she'd let me in the school so I could wash my clothes and take a shower and stuff. I had somebody…"

"What happened to her?"

"She lives across the country. I haven't talked to her in a while but I have her number. She told me to call her if I need anything. So I kind of had somebody…"

"You have me now too, kay?"

Yeah… and I thought I had Alex on my side too. But wishful thinking.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Here… take a bite." I hold a banana to her mouth in hopes that she can find the strength somewhere in her body to take a bite. I thought this was done happening to me—to us. I thought it was all gone and it wasn't gonna come back and she would be fine for the rest of her life. I swear I thought everything was going to be alright. But she's not alright…she's far from alright. She's sick again and even though she's being her usual strong self, I can tell by the same look she's had in her eyes for the past four days that she's scared. If I'm being honest, I'm scared too. I don't know what I'm going to do if she doesn't kick this. She strains to lift her head forward, takes a little nibble of the banana and lets her head fall back limp against the pillow. I hold a bottle of water to her mouth and turn it up so she can sip enough to take the large, yellow pill that's been prescribed to her.

"Thanks." Her voice is hoarse so I shush her to let her know that she doesn't have to talk. It takes so much energy out of her to talk. "…Alex?" In typical Izzie fashion, she ignores the fact that I silenced her and keeps talking. I put my finger to her lips and raise my eyebrows so she knows that I'm here. Whatever it is that she has to talk to me about can wait until she's feeling better. Chemo's been kicking her ass these last few days. It's like she's not even my Izzie anymore. She's a shell. A lifeless shell of who she used to be. "We should…" She's interrupted by a soft but crucial cough. I really wish she'd stop trying to talk. "…Move the wedding up." The fluid they hung in her IV bag is making her drowsy and she's half asleep. "I'm not gonna make it."

"Don't say that." I hold her hand so she knows that I'm still here while she's on her way to sleep. I really wish she didn't have to sleep though. "You're gonna make it to our wedding…and you're gonna be walking down the aisle too. It's gonna happen when we plan for it to happen." I just get so scared every time she goes to sleep. It's like…what if she doesn't wake up? Then what? I still love her and all. I pretty much blew things with Jo so she's out of the question but I don't exactly regret what I did. I regret hurting Jo because I swear I never wanted to do that but I don't regret being here for Izzie, even though I clearly don't feel the same way I used to feel for her. I still don't ever want to see anything bad happen to Iz because even though the love is hardly there, I did love her enough at one point to want to make her my wife.

Clearly there's something wrong with me. Every girl I'm with ends up being crazy or sick or just downright horrible. I'm damaged goods or something like that but I still think that I can be a good man. What would a good man do? A good man would forget about something whimsical and fun. A good man would stick with his fiancée, wouldn't he? If I had a father that wasn't such a sack of shit, I like to think he might've raised me to do the right thing. I like to think he'd reprimand me for ever sleeping with Jo in the first place. I like to think that he'd kick me in the ass and tell me that the right thing to do is to be with Izzie. But the thing is…I don't. I don't have someone in my ear telling me what the right thing to do is. Right now, I'm playing it off by ear and guessing the right thing is to suck up the fact that Jo's pissed at me and be with my fiancée.

I just wish it didn't happen the way it did. I was lying in that bed with Jo and she our entire conversation just replays over and over again in my head. She was telling me how she was upset the night before when she had to leave after we had sex. She said she felt like she was nothing to me but someone to sleep with and it took me a solid five minutes to convince her that wasn't true. I kept telling her how she wasn't just a whore to me and how much it meant for me to sleep with her and when she finally started to believe me, she was falling asleep. She was fast asleep and I was on my way to sleep too when Izzie knocked on the door and the man in me took over. I woke her up and told her to hide in the closet and she did. Just like a cheating man would do to his dirty mistress, I shoved her in a closet to hide her from Izzie. After all that convincing, I showed her that she _was _in fact, nothing but a whore to me.

Let me just say that it's still not like that with Jo though. It's still not like that. I know I treated her like one but she is NOT a whore. Having sex with Jo was just as special to me as it was to her and I swear to God I never meant to hurt her. I never meant to string her along like this, I never meant to hurt her feelings, I never meant to make her hurt me. I'm just in a bad place right now and there's no way she could possibly understand that. She expected me to just snap my fingers and be done with Izzie and while I wish it was that simple, it's not.

I told her that I couldn't just leave Izzie while she was sick again but if she wanted me that bad, then we could still sneak around and do what we're currently doing. I tried to come up with the only solution I could to make both her and Izzie happy but she didn't want to hear it. She basically told me that either I leave Izzie right then and there to be with her or I could kiss her goodbye…and I had to kiss her goodbye. I don't think it was fair of her to ask me something like that. I don't like myself very much for hurting Jo like I did, but I don't think I would like myself very much if I had just left Izzie while she was sick because Jo was throwing a hissy fit.

It's been four days since I've spoken to her, four days since she's even looked at me. She's been avoiding me and it's apparent. She hasn't been on Pediatrics within the last four days but she does have a little girl that she frequents up on the floor. I've noticed that she doesn't go to visit the little girl until I go on my lunch break and I've seen her dodge me. I'll be walking down the hallway and she'll be walking towards me and she'll pretend to check her pager and turn around and bolt the other way. I actually saw her duck behind a gurney the other day to avoid running into me while I was coming off the elevator. I tried to talk to her on Wednesday but when I sat down next to her at the lunch table she was sitting at, she got up and walked away.

It hurts that she won't speak to me and it hurts that she won't even try to understand what a tough position I'm in. I miss Jo more than I ever thought I would but I don't regret being there for Izzie. I don't regret anything…I just wish I could be there for Izzie without Jo hating me. I haven't slept a wink in the last four days because when I lay down, I think about her. I think about how bad I messed up with her and I think about how if Izzie hadn't gotten sick again, things would still be complicated but much simpler than this. I miss the hell out of Jo though.

I miss my pretty brown eyes… but she hates me and that's that.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

When we get out of the car, I sling my tiny duffel bag of my clothes over my shoulder and wait for Steph to lead the way. I don't know exactly what I was expecting for Steph's house but this was NOT it. She lives in a mansion…a MANSION. She pulled her car into a garage that houses a bunch of old junk but if it was completely cleaned out, it could probably fit about three cars comfortably. The outside of the house is made of bricks in various shades of brown and white and green/gray paneling. There is red mulch and little shrubs, bushes and yellow flowers all around the perimeter of the house and cobblestone walkways. The front windows don't have curtains hanging up on the inside but there are shutters that are drawn that look like they spend more time being open than closed. The grass is neatly trimmed and so green that it looks like turf. I've never been to a house this nice before but I'm going to keep my astonishment to myself.

With her bag of clothes hoisted on her back, she uses her index finger to punch a code into a keypad which causes the garage door to shut and lock. I feel like a little child in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. This place is amazing. She side-steps her car and goes over to a flight of three steps. "Come on… this place is a junkyard." She mutters and twists the doorknob to get us out of the garage. This really isn't a big deal to her which blows my mind. She LIVES here. She's USED to this. Me? I have only ever dreamt of being invited to a place like this. She opens up the white door and kicks her shoes off. I walk up those steps and into the spot that she's at. I follow her lead and take my shoes off as well. Immediately, my feet sink into the expensive, plush carpet. This carpet is softer than my old bed.

Directly in front of where we're standing is a flight of about six or seven wooden steps that Steph starts walking up. I don't want to get lost in this place so I again, follow her closely. As we're walking up the steps, pictures of fruit baskets and flowers in vases line the wall. When we reach the top, I'm thrown into a tiny room with tile floors that has a wash machine and a dryer in one corner and piles of clothes strewn everywhere. "…I told my mom I was bringing company. Why she didn't clean this goddamn place up, I don't know…but I TOLD her I was bringing people home." Steph seems genuinely annoyed as she kicks her way through the pile of clothes and goes to a set of double doors that don't have knobs—you just push them open. "This is the laundry room, by the way."

Careful not to step on anyone's laundry, I tiptoe through the room and follow Steph into another room, the kitchen it seems. The floor is made of cold, red and black checkered glassy stones. The walls are lined with brick and hanging from the ceiling are pots and pans. The stove, dishwasher, refrigerator and trash compactor are all made of the same shiny silver metal. The sink is really deep and on the stove is a really big, deep pot. In the middle of the room is an island with four black barstools to sit at and a bowl of fruit in the middle. I take a deep breath and I'm overwhelmed with the smell of something spicy but it smells really, really good. "Kitchen." Steph mumbles as she goes over to the stove and takes the lid off the pot. With her annoyance still prevalent, she slams the lid back on the pot and walks out of the kitchen while I follow like a puppy.

Speaking of puppies, as soon as Steph walks into the hallway that leads to the rest of her mansion, loud, boisterous, roaring barking fills the entire house as a really big dog comes barreling towards us. _Oh my god… _I take a step back and put my hands up while I stand up on my tiptoes. I'm not afraid of dogs…but this dog is enormous. Ever see that children's movie called Beethoven? This dog is the size of two Beethovens. TWO Beethovens. It could eat me. "MOVE, ZEUS!" Steph swats at the dog while it's coming after me. "He won't bite you, I swear. He's really friendly."

_Yeah right… he has teeth, he bites. _"…Are we the only ones here?" I ask, apprehension clear in my voice as I look at the horse-dog. It's really quiet in here and if the dog wasn't barking at me, I'd swear that nobody else lived here. The dog is calming down under Steph's grip but he's still looking at me like he wants a piece of my ass or something. He's not barking anymore but he's snarling at me. Yeah, looks like we can't be friends. Me and the dog, I mean.

"No… my mom's in the living room. I hear the Law & Order song playing and she's a Law & Order fanatic." She grips the dog's collar and walks with it. I follow her still but far behind to avoid contact with the horse that doesn't like me. Steph turns the corner to what I assume is the living room because I hear the Law & Order music playing too. Before I follow her further in, I look around. Pictures line the hallway walls. A girl that looks much like Steph is wearing a blue graduation cap and gown, smiling and boasting a mouthful of braces. Steph's graduation picture is next to hers, followed by two boys. Nobody ever bought my school pictures. I didn't even take senior pictures. I like the fact that she clearly comes from good people. It's nice to know that she has parents that care. "Get the dog…" Steph orders whoever's in the living room.

"Go lay down, Zeus." I hear someone's voice that's not Steph's voice order the dog through clenched teeth. I fix my hair to ensure that I make a good impression and saunter after Steph into the living room as well. The living room is so big that it fits one black leather sectional couch and an average sized couch comfortably. On the wall, a TV is mounted above a black and gray marble fountain that's spewing out a little stream of water over pebbles in the base. In the corner next to the TV is a very large fish tank with multicolored tropical fish swimming around. Steph tosses her bag of clothes in the corner by the arch we just walked in through, walks over to the sectional couch and collapses down on it. I just stand near the door, wishing I were invisible. I'm 28 years old and I've never been nervous like this in my life. I'm just now realizing how much I dislike meeting new people.

Steph unzips her jacket and shrugs it off her shoulders. She looks back over at me and wrinkles her eyebrows like I've just insulted her. "You can sit down, you know." She says. With my hands deep in the pockets of the hoodie I elected to wear, I trot over to the couch and sit next to her. "Yeah, mom this is Jo." She says that so casually, like I've met her mom more times than she can count. Maybe she's mentioned me to her mother before. I don't do very good with mothers. Steph's mom is cute though. She's small and petite with wildly curly hair just like Steph's with streaks of grey seared through it. "Jo, that's mom."

I plaster on that fake smile everyone has when they're trying to appear as saintly and nice and wave. "Hello." I speak up in that cheesy voice. You know how everyone has two voices? Their normal voice that they talk in on a daily basis and that real fake voice they use when they're answering the phone for people they don't know? I'm using that voice. "Nice to meet you." I run my hand through my hair like I always do when I'm nervous and cross my legs to appear ladylike.

"Nice to meet you to, punkin'." She's looking at me like everyone looks at me the first time they meet me. She's looking me from head to toe like she's appraising me or something. She called me "pumpkin" (sounded like puNkin because she's chomping on a wad of chewing gum) and maybe that means she likes me. "Well aren't you just as pretty as you wanna be? What you say your name is?" Her accent is thick…like she's from the south or something and not from Washington. "Is that 'Jo' short for somethin'?" She pauses her TV show just so talk to me.

"Josephine." My fake smile has turned to a natural one. "But you can call me Jo… everyone calls me Jo."

"Mmmhm." She chomps on her gum and folds her hands. "Now you're the one my Stephy's livin' with?" I politely nod my head. Steph closes her eyes and rubs her temple like she can't take this anymore. It kind of annoys me how fed up with her family she is and how mad she got just because there was a mess in the laundry room. So her mom likes to talk a lot? So what there was a little bit of a mess in the laundry room? At least she has a mom…and at least she has a laundry room. "Where you said you're from? You 'not from Washin'ton are you?"

"No ma'am. I'm actually from Massachusetts, over on the east coast? I grew up around Boston, actually." I take my hands out of my pockets and wipe them on my pants because they were sweating from my nerves. I really love the way her mom talks. It's homely.

"No ki'n?" (kidding, she meant) "How'd ya end up all the way here in Washin'ton? Stephy told me that job up down 'ere in Seattle was a good one to get into but I ain't think people actually come from all over to work 'ere."

"Oh yeah. Seattle Grace was the program to get into." I look over at Steph to see if she's okay. She's hanging in there. "Me and Steph are lucky to have gotten in."

"Your folks must be worryin' themselves sick over you bein' across the country. I worried myself sick over Stephy just bein' an hour's way."

"Well…" I start.

"Jo doesn't have parents, mom." Steph springs up from the couch, saving me. "Come on… lemme show you to my old room so we can get settled in." I actually wouldn't have minded explaining to Steph's mom that I was a foster kid. I just don't like feeling like I'm lying to people…especially people as good as Steph's mom.

I stand up off the couch and grab my bag like Steph just grabbed hers. "Nice talking to you." I say very politely to her mother.

"Mmmhm." She picks up the remote and presses play on her TV show.

"Sorry she's so nosy." Steph mutters as she leads me to a staircase.

"I didn't mind."


	24. Explanation

"Your mom seems really nice." I murmur under my breath to Steph as she leads me through a widened hallway once we get to the top of the steps. More pictures of inanimate objects like fruits and flower vases line the walls of the hallway and the only light is coming from the dimmed oil lamps that are mounted to the walls. The straps of my bag are falling down so I readjust it to keep it up on my shoulder. "Is she from the south or something? She has a little bit of an accent, doesn't she?" I look down at the floor while Steph messes with the doorknob of a light brown wooden door. The entire house is filled with that really soft carpet I met while I was downstairs in the basement. There isn't even a stain on any of it, the house is so tidy.

She drops her bags down on the floor so she can use both hands to open the door. "My mom's side of the family's from Louisiana. They moved to Washington when my mom was in high school. She's creole…or something like that." She forcefully pushes the door open and drags her bags inside. I step inside her bedroom just as she flicks the light on. Up against the wall in the far side of her room is a large, queen sized bed with lime green and black polka-dotted bedding. Standing on a tiny dresser in front of the bed is a large flat-screen television. On the other side of the room is a bigger dresser with personal items lining it and three stuffed animals amongst all the personals. Next to the bed is a desk with a swivel chair and a desktop computer. Wow. All I can say is wow.

She tosses her bags on her bed and shuts her door behind us. I put my bag on her floor and sit down next to it so I can sift through it. I unzip it and rummage through for my cell phone charger. "How come you never told me you grew up in Massachusetts? I didn't know that." I was kind of hoping she didn't catch that but it seems like she did. I hope she doesn't get mad at me for lying but I just didn't know what to say. I didn't lie to be malicious or anything I just… I just hadn't planned on telling Steph's mom that I was an orphan so soon but Steph spilled the beans on that one. I just wanted to find a way to tell her that didn't make me sound like a charity case.

"Because I didn't." I pull my charger out of my bag and roll it up on my finger to avoid eye contact with Steph. I'm kind of ashamed that she caught me in a lie about something like that but she'll never get it. She probably never had to lie about where she grew up so she'd never understand. Maybe I can try to make her understand though. "I just didn't really want to tell her. I didn't grow up in one place. I mean, I grew up relatively in New Jersey…that's where I spent the most time. But I felt like I should've given her a town and I couldn't give her one because I didn't stick in one town for too long. So I just said Boston." I sigh. "Sorry."

"…You didn't have to lie." The tone of her voice is really sullen, like she's trying to convince a toddler to tell her the truth. "My family's a bunch of weirdoes but we're not judgmental. You could've told her the truth and she wouldn't have judged. You don't have to lie about anything while you're here."

"I just felt like…" I look over at her so she can see that I'm sincere. "You guys all have such nice things. This house is….amazing. I didn't want to seem like I was trying to mooch off you or anything. I'm sorry but it's really just a force of habit. I'm used to lying so it's like… I don't know." I shrug my shoulders. "I wasn't even gonna tell her that I didn't have parents yet but you told her for me and I saw that she was just cool with it and then I felt bad about lying. I don't know."

"…So where _did _you grow up?"

"…I don't really know where I was born and I can't remember where my first foster home was. But I know that I was in Trenton in a group home for a few years when I was little until they found out where to place me. Then I went to New Brunswick for a few more months and when I got kicked out of that place they shipped me to Philadelphia but I went back to Warren… I wasn't in Pennsylvania for real long. Um…" I bite my thumbnail while I think. I'm missing three places and I can't think of them. I can think of one but that's the place I ended. "Yeah, from Warren I got sent to Millstone and then I was in Middlesex for a little while before I went to my longest foster home which was in Robbinsville and I stayed in Robbinsville after I ran away from there. I graduated from Robbinsville, went to college in Princeton. So literally, I'm from all over. Mostly New Jersey but there's some Pennsylvania in there."

"Is foster care really that bad though?" She scoots over on her bed and pats the spot next to her. I stand up off the floor and walk over to sit down on her bed too. "I trust you when you say that it's horrible but you turned out pretty awesome and… s_omeone _had to teach you, right? Someone taught you how walk, talk, go potty and stuff…"

"It depends. Some houses are horrible and others are great. I've been to a couple houses where I would've given anything to stay. Like the one I was in when I was twelve. It was amazing. There was me and two others, a boy and a girl, and they got adopted but I didn't. The house was great, Steph… Dinner every night, I could take showers or baths if I wanted. I got a pair of boots and a coat from them on Christmas that year. They knew I wasn't gonna be there long so they gave me a Christmas present a whole week before Christmas. And they were the first ones that ever…" I lick my lip and crack a smile at the memory but I know this will probably sound weird to her. "They gave me my toothbrush. And I could keep it. They were the first ones that ever gave me a friggin' toothbrush and I loved them for that. The mom… she was a really good baker so she would bake cookies and stuff. And I got one report card while I was with them and they gave me five bucks for getting all As." I run my fingers through my hair and sigh. "I would've given anything to stay at that house."

"Why'd you have to leave then? If they liked you and you liked them, why couldn't you just stay? Why didn't they just adopt you?"

"Cause it had to be temporary. They weren't really licensed to foster or something like that so they couldn't keep me. And they were the only family that ever expressed interest in adopting me but adoption means that your birth parents have to sign these papers and nobody could ever get ahold of mine. I was unadoptable, I guess. Nobody else ever wanted me after that." I pull a loose string on my jeans. "I kinda got tired of the foster system by the time I was sixteen so I just said whatever and I left it. I couldn't take being bounced around to people that didn't like me, you know? You're bounced around and bounced around to people that don't want anything to do with you. And you spend all this time trying to tell yourself that you're just like everyone else, despite the fact that you don't have parents to sign permission slips and stuff for you at school. And they just throw you around like you're nothing. It's tiresome and draining to deal with people that don't love you. You gotta learn how to love yourself even when nobody else does."

I bite on the inside of my cheek. Steph's quiet so I continue. I realize now that I've never had anyone to tell about this stuff that's been in my head all my life. I don't have anybody else that knows, just me. "…Then you count on someone because you want to believe that this is it. You want to believe that this is the house…this is the one that's gonna keep you and you're gonna be able to call these people mom and dad and brother and sister and stuff." I look around, feeling the tears coming. "It's hard to explain that to yourself at five years old or six years old. It's hard to make sense out of it but I did. Like when you trust this person because they're supposed to give you a safe place to stay…" I clear my throat. "And then that safe place turns into a place where you end up hungry or scared that if you don't wash the dishes right they'll whip you or you're trying to read a goddamned book and someone comes in your room to have his way with you." I swat the tear away as quickly as it falls. "…You don't know how lucky you are Steph. You get annoyed with the fact that your laundry room is dirty, but I would've killed just to have one."

"…Right." She whispers and scoots over towards me a little more. "I'm sorry you have to listen to me bitch about things. I just never really thought about that." She uses her thumbs and wipes my tears away. "…You know what though?" I raise my eyebrows so she knows I'm listening. "…It's crazy how people with shitty parents turn out way better than the ones that had good ones." That makes me laugh a little bit. "No Jo, I'm serious. I'm so serious." She keeps wiping my face and comforting me. "You get people like you that have the worst parents, the WORST upbringing possible...and you're an amazing person, being a doctor and stuff. But you get the dumb shits out there that have parents that spoil them and give them whatever they want, and they end up…shooting up movie theaters, shooting up elementary schools, raping little kids…shit like that."

I laugh again. "Shut up Stephanie." I sniff and pull myself together. "Besides, if I wasn't a doctor, I'd just end up homeless again…or back in jail, whatever comes first."

"…You went to JAIL?!"

"I swear I told you I got arrested before. I swear I did."

"I WOULD'VE REMEMBERED IF YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE A CONVICTED FELON, JO!"

"I'm not a felon! It wasn't even a felony! It was a misdemeanor!...kind of."

"What did you do?!"

"...Look, I was in college and I was stupid. I did some bad things in college."

"How bad?! They couldn't have been jail worthy otherwise you would've got kicked out!"

"Right but not if the school wanted to cover it up." I sigh and cross my legs. "Alright, so look… there were NO parties at Princeton so any party you wanted to go to, you had to sneak and go off campus to go to them. They literally don't let any bullshit happen in the Ivy League and if some bullshit does go down, they cover it up. Like me and my roommate went down to this off-campus party and it was super crowded because the football team just won a playoff game. And this linebacker came up to me and started hitting on me and I wasn't interested so I gave him a fake number because… you know. So I walked away and went outside to see what was going on out there and he found out that the number was fake and he was pissed but he forgave me and we started talking and stuff and I had a couple beers in me so I was a little bit buzzed. And we went to this room behind the pool shed and to "talk" and he moved in kind of rough so I like… I dunno, I hit him with a beer bottle. His head was bleeding and stuff and I was freaked out so I ran but he caught up with me and tried to hit me but I hit him back…bad. And he called the cops on me and I got arrested. But the only reason I didn't get kicked out is because it happened between a Princeton student and a Princeton football player and the university didn't want any negative publicity so they covered it up by giving the guy a PFA against me and letting me come back."

"He tried to rape you? Seriously, what is it with guys and trying to get with you? I know you're pretty but damn. You should wear an electric shock chastity belt or something."

"I know right?" I stretch out my legs and yawn. "But it's not necessary anymore. I know how to get myself out of these situations these days. I've put guys in the hospital and they kind of learn not to fuck with me."

"Yeah well after I seen what you did to poor Tina…"

"Shut up!"

**X X X **

Steph wasn't kidding when she said her brothers were pervs. I haven't met her sister yet because her sister hasn't been home but I have met her brothers. Her older brother Steven is tall and lean with broad shoulders. He looks a lot like Steph in the face but his nose is wider and flatter than hers. His hair is neatly trimmed and low cut. While he's not ugly, he's not exactly my type and I hear that he's got a girlfriend. He's been hitting on me all night like he's single though. I think Steph said that he's thirty one or something along the lines of that and he's got a job in downtown Olympia at the sports-medicine clinic. He's a concussion specialist in training. Steph's family is full of doctors. Her sister is a Physician Assistant and her younger brother is in school to be an orthodontist. Steph's the only surgeon though.

Her younger brother is more my type but I'm still not interested. He has longer curly hair in the middle and his sides are shaved in a Mohawk form and while he's still muscular because he plays football, he's a lot lankier than the older brother. He has caramel colored eyes that off-set his dark complexion and a neatly groomed chin-strap beard. He's only twenty two years old and from what I've gathered, he has a girlfriend as well. He hasn't been hitting on me like Steven has been but it's apparent that I've piqued his interest.

I've been flirted with all night but I just can't find it in me to flirt back, which is unusual for me. I'm usually really good at flirting but tonight, I've sucked at it. I'm not sure if it's because they're Steph's brothers that I'd be flirting with but for some reason, I really can't flirt. I think the real reason is because even though both of them are nice looking, neither one of them are what I'm looking for. I have to believe that if either one of them had pale white skin, fluffy, soft wavy brown hair, brown eyes that make me melt and a goofy smile that possesses the ability to make me smile even when I don't want to, I'd have no problem flirting with them. But they're not my Alex and I'm disinterested otherwise.

I know Steph told me not to talk about him this weekend but that doesn't mean I can't think about him, does it? I hope not. I miss him. It's not in little waves or anything either, it's constant. A constant, aching pain in my heart that makes me remember what I'm missing. I miss him more than words can say. And I'm sure that this is just a matter of me falling too hard too fast again but I swear I have to love him. I have to. I don't want to love him but I really think I might. I can't love him though. Everyone that I ever try to love ends up hurting me and he's no different. I don't know, maybe I've been selfish with him but I didn't mean to be. Okay so maybe I had no business asking him to leave his wife for me when she's clearly sick but I didn't know what else to do…

I can't settle for seeing him when we sneak in and out of on-call rooms. I can't settle for hoping that I can sleep with him on occasion. I can't settle for him not being mine and ONLY mine so I won't. Maybe I was wrong for asking him to ditch her and be with me but he was wrong for asking me to settle, wasn't he? He was expecting me to understand that he has to be there for his wife while she's sick and I get that. I swear I get that. But what about me? Why don't I matter? Why is it okay to hurt me as long as she's happy? Why is that okay? Why am I the one that gets sacrificed? Am I naïve? I must be. I'm naïve, stupid or both. Because I swear to you… I SWEAR somewhere in my brain I thought I had a chance. I thought there was a little sliver or hope that he would say he wanted me. Even though it's clear that four years doesn't match up to the month I've known him.

At this point, all I want to know is where I stand. I used to want to be somebody, you know? I used to want to be somebody to him—not just the girl he had sex with. I wanted to be like… maybe his girlfriend or something. I wanted to be more than the one he slept with and kicked out afterwards. I wanted to be _somebody _to him. But I'm not. And I just want to know where I stand. Can I be honest? I'm scared. I'm so scared now that I don't have him and all chance of ever having him is lost. I'm so scared that I won't ever get over him. He'll never want me in the way that I want him and I know that, I swear I do. Which is why I'm so terrified. What if I never get over him and I spend the rest of my life alone because I just want to wait until he up and decides he wants to be with me? He'll never decide he wants to be with me because she'll always have fucking cancer and I'll just spend the rest of my miserable, pathetic life just waiting.

…Maybe I should give Jason another chance. At this point, he's probably the only one I have a chance with. I don't go anywhere and I don't do anything because I'm always so damn busy anymore and the hospital is my dating pool. Maybe if me and Jason talked things out for a while we could work it all out and we could actually have a good relationship. I need someone to keep my mind off Alex because I really don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. I really, really don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. Everybody always says that I'm pretty and I shouldn't have a problem finding somebody but everybody treats me like shit. If I'm so pretty, why do I attract all the assholes? I found that linebacker in college that only wanted to rape me, I found Jason sure and all he wants to do is hit me. I found Alex and I thought I found a winner but he's just as much of an asshole as everyone else. _No more thinking about Alex. No more. Enjoy time with Steph and her family._

"Jo honey, you hungry?" As soon as Steph and I step foot into the kitchen, her mom starts talking to me. She doesn't even acknowledge Steph, she goes straight to me. She wasn't down here an hour ago when Steph and I were. Steph took me upstairs to take a shower because she noticed that I was getting uncomfortable around her brothers. We both showered and we were actually about to run down to the store to grab some snacks. Steph's body language reads clear annoyance but ever since we had our heart to heart in her bedroom earlier, she's been trying to act more appreciative.

Her mom is busily sprinkling some kind of spice in a shaker into the pot of whatever that's been on the stove since we got here. It smells so good that my stomach rumbles a little bit. I don't know what's in that pot but it smells heavenly. And I like how Steph's mom's just in her element in the kitchen. There's a small stereo player next to the blender on the counter and it's playing a soft, mellow song that I've never heard before.

"I told you we ate before we came here, mom." Steph sits down on the one of the barstools in the kitchen and I sit in the one right beside her. Actually, I am kind of hungry. I could eat something right now but if Steph's having some kind of internal struggle with her mom, I won't get in the middle of it. "I told you we stopped at Wendy's. She's fine. Don't you think I already asked her if she's hungry?" _…She kind of didn't ask me, but again I won't get in the middle of that. _"Jo, are you hungry?" She turns to me and asks me with irritation clear in her voice.

"…Not really, no." I don't lie, I embellish a little bit. I don't want to come right out and say yes because I don't want to get Steph into any kind of trouble but I don't want to say no and end up starving when I could clearly eat something. "I could eat though." Steph sucks her teeth but I'm not sure if it was directed at me or not so I don't say anything, I just look up at the ceiling and admire the crown molding. The song switched so I sing in my head because I still can't tell whether Steph's mad at me or not. _But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trashin' the hotel room. We don't care…we're driving Cadillac's in our dreams. _

"Steph'nie Marie get up and fix your guest a plate." Her mom says that with an authoritative voice that's still so mellow that it's hard to tell whether she was serious or not. Oh no, Steph doesn't have to serve me. I'm hungry and all but I can serve myself…she really doesn't have to. Her mom puts a wooden spoon back into the pot and stirs it, hum/singing quietly. "We'll never be royals… hmmm hmmm hmmm hm hm."

Steph gets out of the barstool and goes over to a cabinet. She pulls out two blue glass bowls and sets them down on the counter. She opens up the dishwasher and plucks out two clean spoons. "Do you even like chili?" She turns around and asks me. I'm far from picky and I've never had chili before but it's food and I'll eat it.

"…I've never had it." I feel bad about the fact that she's about to serve me so I stand up and take one of the bowls off her. "What is it? Like…what's in it?"

Steph just shakes her head at me. "…I can't believe you've never had a bowl of chili before." Once Steph's mom moves out of the way, she grabs the wooden spoon she was stirring with and merely snatches the bowl out of my hands. "I can't really tell you what's in it. Chili is…chili." She scoops a bunch of it into my bowl. _Well it looks good…I'll try anything once. _"Is there anything you've had? You're like a little alien." She shoves the bowl into me.

"…Stop making fun of me." I take it off her and take the spoon she got out for me. It smells good and it looks good. I learned from a very young age not to be picky when it comes to food so I'm not. I sit back down in the barstool at the island and look around. Steph's mom is cleaning up and Steph's cutting into a pan of something, after she made her plate. See, this is why I don't want to have kids. I don't have blood relatives which means my children will never have aunts or uncles and I can't cook to save my life so my poor child won't ever have homecooked meals like this. I mean, I CAN cook. I can follow a recipe and I swear it'll be edible and it'll taste good, but as far as just knowing how to season food the way Steph's mom was just doing, I'm a lost soul.

"I done told you 'bout eatin' junk before you come see me, din't(didn't) I?" Her mom starts rambling on at her. Steph's quiet with an occasional head nod here or there. "You know I like for you to eat good while you here and you go on and eat junk? I told you I was makin' a pot uh chili for you and you eat junk? You only come see me once in a blue moon and you eat junk? Don't _no_body 'preciate nothin' round here." She slams the dishwasher shut. She seems more annoyed than angry. "When's the last time you done had a good homecooked meal? Then you go eat JUNK?" Is this what mothers do? Do they bitch at you for eating bad things? Do they beg to feed you? Hm…I needed a mother in the worst way growing up then. "When the last time you had a good meal was, Jo? Bet it wa'nt (wasn't) no time lately, was it?"

I really love the way she talks. It kind of reminds me of how everyone in Jersey had an accent. I didn't notice it before but I've been living in Washington long enough to notice the different accents. Steph's mom's southern accent is really neat. "No ma'am, it wasn't." Steph rolls her eyes and sits down beside me again, sliding a saucer with something yellow on it. "What's this?" I whisper to her.

"Cornbread. Just eat it." She snaps at me and spoons some chili into her mouth. I scoop some up onto my spoon, blow on it and put it in my mouth. _Oh my god this is amazing. Holy shit this is good. _"Watch this." Steph mutters to me. I'm chewing my first spoonful of chili, so I nod. "Mom, Jo's never had a Thanksgiving dinner before." I glare at her from the side of my eye.

"Never?" Her mom stops washing dishes to turn and look at me. I shake my head because I just took a bite of cornbread—which is equally amazing, I must say. "Steph'nie, you bring her 'ere for the holidays. I'll fatten 'er up. Knew there was a reason the child's so skinny." I start to laugh midway through swallowing which makes me choke a little bit. Steph whacks me on my back pretty hard. "Where you say you went on to school at now?"

I swallow hard through my mini choking spell. "I don't think I did." I wipe my mouth. "But I went to Princeton and Harvard Med."

"No kiddin'? Cheese n' crackers… Steph could learn somethin' from you." More like I could learn everything from Steph. Good schools doesn't mean I'm any smarter than her, really. "Your folks is really missin' out. That's somethin' to be proud of." She wipes her wet hands on a dishtowel and comes over to the island me and Steph are sitting at. "I'm proud uh all four of mines and they ain't even gone to them good schools. Someone oughta be proud uh you, darlin'."

"…I'm proud of me?" I crack a playful smile and push my empty chili bowl away from me. God that was really good. "No offense but… I'm the only person that ever cared about me so… I'm proud of me. I…" I bite my lip to think of how to phrase this. "I never had a Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas presents under the tree but I always had a straight A report card, you know?"

She nods her head and takes my bowl over to the stove to refill it. "Long as Steph'nie got a home here, you got a home here…you hear?" She gives me the seconds and sets another piece of cornbread on the saucer as well. "Not too often I gets to meet good friends of hers. She 'use to drag hoodlums home all the time. You're a good one." She takes Steph's bowl back over to the stove as well. "And long as you're a friend of my daughters, you're welcome here."

"Thank you ma'am."

Steph leans over to whisper something in my ear. "…This is exactly why I brought you here. Told you I'm your family now and that's what I meant." I'm not a very sentimental person but I might shed a tear. I kind of wish I would've met Steph way back when I was a little kid that needed family. Not that I don't need a family now because I do but I really wanted a mom like hers and good people like these around when I was little. But I'm glad I met Steph now rather than never. I put my arm around her in a hug to silently thank her because I know that a hug like that speaks volumes. And for the second time tonight, my mind is off of Alex.

But only for a little while.

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN****: **So good news! (I think)

I didn't realize how much of Jo I already got through within the last 23 chapters. I didn't realize how much I have developed her, so this chapter was just tying up a few loose ends on her. I was able to convey everything I wanted to all in one chapter and hopefully you guys have a better understanding of the Jo I'm trying to create in this story. I will say that this chapter will be pivotal and you'll see why some of the things mentioned and brushed over in this chapter were so important by about chapter 30. With that being said, I'm done with the kind of development I was going for with Jo.

I took some time out to reread the chapters up until now and I realize that I DO have a considerable amount of background info I have to provide for Alex so the next chapter will be Alex-centric. Lots of Alex next chapter, no Jo. Still no Jolex interaction yet, but since I was able to sum Jo up in one chapter, the Jolex interaction won't be gone for as long as I thought it was going to be.

And if there are any vibes you're getting from this chapter about where I might take the story, feel free to guess! I'll tell you if you're close and stuff.


	25. For Good This Time

"She's doing better." I'm not much of a cleaner so I don't really know exactly how to use this thing but I'll try my damnedest. I haven't been the best man lately and I don't know much about being a good one, but I know that I have to go pick Izzie up in two hours because she gets to come home, and she at least deserves to come home to a clean house. "They're letting her come home but she has to take a couple days off work to rest up and stuff but they say she should be just fine." I plug the cord into an electrical outlet by the TV and search the machine for the power switch. I told Izzie to call her mother when she was feeling better but in typical Izzie fashion, she didn't want to worry her so she never even called. I took it upon myself to call Robby though. I just thought she should know. "Yeah, Dr. Swindle said she can go back to work as long as she stays on top of her treatments."

I find the power switch next to the handle and put my index finger on it. "Yes ma'am. No ma'am. I will." I brace the phone to my ear using my shoulder and start to untwine the rest of cord so I have some leeway with this thing. "I'll make sure she calls you when she gets home. Yeah. Yep. Sure. Alright Rob, take care. Buh-bye." I take my phone away from my ear and shut it off. Iz's mom can talk someone's ear off so I'm glad I caught her when she was in the middle of something. If she had free time, she would've talked to me for hours and I don't need that. When my phone is all free from me talking on it, I reach into my pocket and grab my tangled wad of headphones. I pick them out of a knot and shove them in my ears. I put the music I have on my phone on shuffle and turn the vacuum cleaner on.

These last few days have been my own personal version of hell. It's so nerve-wracking to have to sit by the bedside and watch someone you love suffer the way Izzie's been suffering. She's on the most toxic dose of chemotherapy treatment and it takes so much out of her for them to keep poking and prodding her body like a needle cushion. The thing that's driving me the craziest is the fact that I'm a DOCTOR…and I can't fix her. I can't just wave my magic little medicinal wand and make her be okay when I get PAID to fix things other people can't. But I can't fix her… All I can do is sit back and watch while they take her away from me piece by piece, vein by vein trying to fix her using some tactic that might buy her some time with me, a few days at the least.

While I push the vacuum back and forth, I notice that the floor was really dirty. Like I said, I'm not much of a cleaner but it looks like I might have to step it up. I used to be able to count on my laundry being done, the sheets being washed, the floors being clean and the bed being made every morning. Izzie used to take care of all of that for me. But I anticipate that she'll be very meek, tiresome and fragile when she gets home so I'm gonna have to step it up. I'll make sure the house is clean; I'll do my best to wash up all her laundry, change out the bed sheets and attempt to make dinner tonight. How hard can it possibly be to follow a recipe? I cut people open for a living and I was bred on doing complex sutures…a recipe should be quite simple, right?

Anyway, I've had a lot of time to sit around and think within these last few days. Once the attendings got word that Iz was real sick again, they gave me a pretty light workload. I didn't ask for a light workload, the attendings just thought it'd be nice to automatically give me one but in all honesty, I would rather work. If I spent all my time working instead of all my time at Iz's bedside watching her wither away, I wouldn't have that much time to think and I wouldn't be driving myself crazy.

Iz said something about wanting to move the wedding up because she felt like she was going but once she started feeling better; she stopped all that crazy talk. I won't lie about having cold feet. It's starting really hit me how much I don't want to get married. It's not even that I don't want to get married to Iz anymore because I don't love her; I do still love her, I just don't think I'm ready to get married. When I get married, I want to do it right. I want to be able to take those sacred vows and mean it. I don't want to worry about cheating once I take those vows and I feel like if I got married right now, I'd be nothing but a cheater and I don't want to do that.

Anyway, we're still looking at October for the wedding with Dr. Swindle's blessing. She says that Iz will still be around come October unless some weird freak accident happens and she ends up dying in some off the wall way. They caught the new mets early enough to shrink them with chemo and they shouldn't cause any problems. Great, because that means I have until October to do one of four things: Fall so far in love with Izzie that I want to marry her wholeheartedly, mutually end things on a good note with her, come to terms with the fact that she'll hate me when I end it even though I don't want her to, or my feelings for the pretty brown eyes can go away. One of those four things has to happen by October.

I've been thinking about my pretty brown eyes a lot within these last couple days as well. I'm honestly a little bit irritated with her and I'm glad that she hasn't even made an effort to talk to me because I still need a little while to cool down. I just can't believe she had the balls to ask me to leave Izzie, KNOWING that she's sick again. I just need Jo to get it and she just doesn't. I need her to get that I don't want her to hate me. I need her to understand that I _do _care for her and I don't want to spend the rest of my life not talking to her because she IS a very good friend. But I also need her to comprehend that she DOES come second and she will come second for as long as I'm with Izzie.

That sounds harsh but it's the dead honest truth. Right now, all Jo is to me is the woman I cheated on my fiancée with, that's it. She's no more to me than that, she's no less to me than that. She's the one I cheated on Iz with and that's all she can be until I sort this out. I know I'm already past the whole "not wanting to be a cheater". That ship has sailed last Sunday when I had sex with her. But there's a limit, you know? There's a limit to how far I'm willing to go with that. It shouldn't have happened in the first place and I would hate my guts more than I already do if I kept it going.

Part of me knew that I wouldn't have allowed Jo to be okay with sneaking around with me. She's more than that to me and she should be more than that to everybody. I knew she'd say no and I knew that I wouldn't have let her say yes. But still, I suggested it because I didn't want her to just be done with me. I don't want to lose her as my friend and I'm already going crazy because I haven't talked to her in a while. I wanted her to know that I really do think that sneaking around with her would be better than being nothing to her. I would love for her to be my girl. I don't know what it is about her that's got me hooked, maybe it's the pretty brown eyes—MY pretty brown eyes. I don't know what it is… but I want her to be somebody more than my mistress and she can't…at least not right now she can't be.

I'm done vacuuming the living room I think, so I sit down on the couch and hold my head in my hands. I kind of wish I could cut my skull open and take my brain out for a little while. I just want to be able to function without thinking because thinking makes me feel like shit. I feel like I'm doing the right thing by sticking by Izzie. I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do and in doing this, I'm a man. But how can I feel good about this when I know in the back of my mind that I'm hurting Jo? And how could I feel good about leaving Izzie when I once loved her enough to want to make her my fiancée? I've spent 32 years of my life trying to set myself aside and make damn sure that I'm not my father. That sack of shit did nothing but run when things got too hard to deal with. If I leave Izzie, does that make me like him? Am I nothing but a clone of him?

I used to think growing up without parents would make me a better person in the end but who was I kidding? All growing up without parents did was make me well aware of what not to do if and when I have kids of my own. My crazy ass mom didn't teach me how to be all affectionate and stuff and my shitty ass dad sure as hell didn't teach me how to be a man. All the two of them ever did for me was teach me what NOT to do. No actually, no parents taught me a lot. When people look at me, they probably only see a messed up guy with no feelings, asshole tendencies; the first class jerk. But I promise there's more to me than that.

My mom… she was good for a little while. She was good when she was lucid. There was one time when made me a birthday cake from scratch. The whole thing was from scratch too. She let me help her crack the eggs and she didn't even get mad when I dropped a shell in the mixture. She even let me stir the powdered sugar and milk to make the frosting. At four years old, I thought it was the greatest thing ever when she put blue food coloring in the frosting to write "Happy 5th B-Day Alex" on the cake. I thought only cakes that came from the stores that we couldn't afford came with blue frosting yet somehow, like a superhero or something, she made it possible for my birthday cake to have blue frosting.

She would always yell at me for eating raw cookie dough and cake batter and stuff but because it was my birthday, she let me lick the mixers with the frosting on them. She was trying to clean up so that there wasn't a mess in the kitchen when it was time to sing happy birthday to me and I was getting in the way, so she picked me up and sat me on the counter with the mixers and the bowl she mixed the frosting in and let me lick the bowl until it was completely clean. I don't know why, but I distinctly remember her cleaning up and stopping at me every five minutes to kiss my forehead while she was singing "As Long As You Love Me" by the Backstreet Boys to me. I remember her switching the lyrics in the song so that instead of singing "As long as you love me baby", she was saying "As long as you love me Ally" to me. Nobody's ever called me "Ally" since she has and the reason why speaks for itself. I used to think that "Ally" was a chick's name but it never bothered me too much when she called me that.

I guess it's kind of sad that that's the only good memory I have of her. She was great until she just wasn't one day. One memory she was baking me a birthday cake from scratch because we couldn't afford to buy one from the store and then the next, she would just sit on the bedroom floor rocking back and forth, staring at the wall. She was singing to me one minute then the next, I was prying a steak knife out of her hands, praying that she wouldn't kill Aaron. Aaron and Amber are way too young to even remember how good she was before she went all half-cocked and crazy on us. I remember the mom that used to fuss at me if I didn't wash behind my ears good enough but all they remember is the one that sat in a comatose state for an entire week because she felt like "they" were coming to take her away.

See, I remembered how good of a mom Helen could've been but Aaron and Amber had no clue. I knew what she could've been and they didn't which is why it was so tough for me to make the decision to call and have her committed. It took real guts at ten years old to lie to the people that were taking her away and tell them that our dad was suited to take care of us, just because I didn't want them to split us up. And for a little while, Jimmy was okay to take care of us. I swear to God for a good two days, he was okay to take care of us. He stayed in with us and he told us that "mom was gonna be okay" and he ordered us takeout pizza for dinner. Until the next day when the three of us were starving half to death and he swore that he was gonna run down to the pub to get us some dinner and he never came back. I was a better dad to Aaron and Ambs than he ever was and I'll forever think that they were better off not knowing that piece of garbage.

I feel a headache coming on so I pull myself up off the couch and go into the kitchen in search of some acetaminophen. I get headaches every time I start to think too much and it's kind of annoying. I go over by the fridge and yank the junk drawer open. I grab the bottle of pain killers, dump three out into my hand and pop them into my mouth. I turn the faucet on, stick my face underneath of it and guzzle some water to swallow the pills with.

I pop my headphones back into my ears and press play. I'd better finish cleaning up before I have to go grab Izzie.

**X X X **

"I want you to make sure she gets at least twelve hours of rest. Her body is still trying to rebound from the high doses of chemo we administered while she was here." While I'm pushing Iz's wheelchair through the hallway to the elevator, Dr. Swindle is barking orders at me as if this is my first time dealing with Iz post-chemotherapy. Dr. Swindle is pushy…very pushy and very aggressive but she's the best and I need the best for Izzie. "Light foods as well. She might not be able to keep anything down, which is normal by my standards. However she DOES need to eat so if I recommend crackers, soups, ginger ale… light foods. Nothing heavy." I nod my head, wishing she'd shut up. "Call me if she starts vomiting profusely, if she seems disoriented… just call."

"Yeah yeah yeah, call if anything's out of the norm. I got it." Once we reach the elevator, I hold my hand out so she can give me Izzie's prescriptions and stuff. Iz hasn't said much of anything but I know that she's glad to get out of the hospital. She hates it in the hospital beds, eating the hospital food, bored only rewatching the same dumb soap operas over and over again. She prefers to be home and she doesn't make that a secret. "When do you want to see her back?"

Dr. Swindle flips through Izzie's chart and looks up at me. "Bring her back in two days unless she gets worse, then obviously bring her back sooner. Two days at home in the bed then I might release her back to work. No heavy lifting, no vigorous tasks, no persistent cognitive activities. Abstain from strenuous physical activities such as sex." She shuts her chart and looks directly in my eyes, seriousness written all over her face. "And I'm not sure if or when the two of you planned on implanting the frozen embryos…nor is it any of my business. But as her doctor, I think it'd be wise to wait on the baby-making for at least another 6-8 months. The chemo she's on is toxic for her, could be fatal to a fetus."

"Got it." I put my hand against Iz's cheek. She feels really warm. She probably has a bit of a fever which isn't uncommon for cancer patients. The whole "wait to have a baby" thing isn't really bothering me as much as I expected it to. I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'll probably never have kids with Iz. Even if I do stay with her permanently, I don't think her body will ever be strong enough to carry a child and endure birth. We've discussed the possibility of getting a surrogate and things like that but we'll cross that bridge when….if we ever get there. I'll be a dad (and a damn good one) someday and I'm not exactly in a rush to be one anytime soon. "You feelin' alright?" I ask her.

"I'm hanging in there." She sighs, weakly twisting her engagement ring around her finger. When I left her to go clean up at home earlier, she was bummed out that the couple rounds of chemo was gonna make her hair fall out again. I spent the better half of my time there convincing her again that she didn't need her hair to be beautiful. She was just upset that it was finally starting to get long again. "I'm so tired… just make sure I don't fall asleep in the car…"

"If you're tired, go on and sleep." I kneel down and kiss her on her cheek. "I'll make sure you get in the house alright. You're supposed to be sleeping twelve hours anyway." I can tell where they kept sticking the needles at to administer her chemo because the folds of her arms and the backs of both her hands are purplish and bruised. "You're alright as long as I'm here."

"Yeah I know." She mumbles. "I just wanna wait until I'm in a bed."

"I got you." I whisper in her ear with another kiss to her cheek before I stand up and wheel her onto the elevator. Since her back is turned to me and she can't see, I take the opportunity to smack a fallen tear off my face. I'm crying for a number of reasons but really only one reigns supreme. I'm just so tired of seeing her like this, you know? I'm so tired of her being sick and I'm tired of having to be strong. I just wish she could be healthy again. It hurts seeing her like this. It really hurts.

I'm not leaving her. I made up my mind…for good this time. I'm not leaving her, to hell with Jo. I'm gonna stay with her because she needs me and she'll always need me. She needs me more than Jo will ever need me and I would be so much less of a man if I left her for the stupid little intern I took advantage of on my couch last Sunday. God Jo is gonna hate me but I'm gonna have to live with that. I don't love Iz as much as I once thought I did but there is some degree of love there. I know there's some love there because it's KILLING me to see her like this. We're getting married and I'm spending the rest of my life with her. And I'm gonna tell her about my little transgression with Jo. I'm gonna tell her. Our relationship can't be built on a lie. I'm gonna tell her and I'm going to tell Jo to leave me alone for good and that's just what it's gonna be. I think this is the right thing to do.

I swallow a lump in my throat and fish down into my pocket for my cell phone. I slide my finger across the screen to unlock it and go to my text messages. I tap the upper right hand corner to compose a new text. I type her contact name and sigh when I see it. Somehow this just became more real when I actually see those two letters. Somewhere inside my body, I don't want to do this…but I know I have to. I know that this is the right thing for me to do…even though it hurts to do it.

**iMessage**

**Sat, August 7, 2014**

**5:21 p.m.**

**Me: **Bye Jo…. for good this time.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I know this chapter was a little bit short but yeah. The Jolex interaction drought is over next chapter though so yay.


	26. Comfort

There are two different forms to being speechless. The first form is the kind of speechless you get whenever you have so much in your head to say that you can't even form a sentence because you don't know where to begin. You feel like if you open your mouth, everything you have to say will just spill right out in a big flood of jumbled up words and issues; like mouth diarrhea. The second kind of speechless is when you're literally speechless, unable to say anything because you just _don't _know what to say. Wracked with confusion mixed with a little disbelief, it's just impossible to spit anything at all out. I think I'm suffering from the second kind. I literally just don't know what to say.

Like I've been doing for the last twenty minutes, I just stare at the bright touchscreen; my eyes scan it from top to bottom as my fingers are frozen from typing anything back. I have shitty service in the tiny little bathroom I've holed myself up inside but the two bars of service that I do have will be able to send a text message…when I figure out what to say back. The little grey balloon is just dormant on the screen, boasting what he said in the first place. I know he knows that I read it because I don't know how to work this fancy new smartphone well enough yet and I don't know how to turn off the thing that tells him that I've read the message.

**iMessage**

**Sat, August 7, 2014**

**5:21 p.m.**

**Alex: **Bye Jo…. for good this time.

What does he mean by "bye"? Does he mean that he's done talking to me ever again? I'm just not sure what he means by that. I think he means that he's done ever talking to me but it's not like I've been bothering him anyway so there was literally no need for him to even come bothering me. He can't mean "bye" as in he's gonna stop talking to me because I haven't talked to him in five days in the first place. I haven't talked to him since Monday…it's Saturday now, he's making it seem like I've been bugging him and I won't leave him alone. So what exactly does he mean by "bye"? I was doing so well with forgetting about him. I was having fun sitting outside on the patio with Steph, talking to her dad about this episode of Oprah I watched last week when I was off and hungover. And for a little while, I wasn't thinking about Alex. I wasn't thinking about how much I missed him, I wasn't thinking about how much I hate the fact that he treats me like I'm nothing, I wasn't thinking about him and life was good for a little while.

Then, my phone buzzes in my pocket, I pick it out and I notice that I have a text message from him. Before I opened the text, I found myself getting all excited. I don't know why, but I thought maybe he just wanted to talk to me. I've virtually given up on him ever wanting me for anything other than sex, but I was thinking that maybe—just maybe…he wanted to talk to me because he misses me too. My delusion only lasted for about six seconds until I opened the text and read it. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and now I'm just really confused. I don't get what he means by "Bye Jo" and because I don't know what he means, I can't text him back. Maybe I shouldn't text him back. Maybe just him knowing that I read it is enough. Silence speaks volumes sometimes. Well it's been twenty minutes since I've got the text and I still haven't found anything inside my brain to say to him. So for that reason, I push the top button and lock my phone back up. I shove it inside the butt pocket of my blue jean shorts because the shorts are tight because they're Stephanie's and I know that it won't slide out of the back pocket since they're tight.

I twist the doorknob and open up the door to let myself out of the bathroom. I'm glad that I already ate all of the good cookout food because if I had gotten that text message before I ate, it would've ruined my appetite for sure. As I walk through the kitchen to go back outside on the patio, I stop and grab a bottle of water from the cooler next to the sliding glass doors. I'm not really surprised that there was a whole lot of food because it seems like Steph's mom lives for feeding me. What I am surprised with is the fact that this seems so normal to them. I've never been to a cookout before but I didn't tell Steph that. I feel like she would've made fun of me if I told her that.

Part of me has been wondering how much differently I would've turned out if I grew up with a family like Steph's. I wonder if I still would've been as smart as I am, still would be this hardworking. I just wonder how much different it would've been. I twist the cap off my bottle of water and take a long, drowned out sip before I step foot back outside. I don't normally like to drink strictly water but it seems fitting for today because one, it's so hot and humid for Washington weather today that feel like I'm permanently in a sauna; and two, I've gorged myself on hamburgers, hotdogs, pasta salad, potato salad, baked beans, corn on the cob, watermelon, every kind of fruit I could have thought of and at least six different kinds of barbecue sauce. Water is the only straight healthy thing I've done for myself today so I feel better if I drink water.

I slide the door open and step out onto the patio. One of Steph's uncles is still standing at the grill making more food and the rest of her family is all gathered around one of the tables on the patio with a deck of cards. Steph's not sitting in the chair at the table we were sitting at before I went inside the house like I left her, so I palm my bottle of water and look around for her. Not that I'm uncomfortable around her family it's just that I don't know anyone well enough to strike up a conversation with them and she left me and yeah… I am feeling a little bit uncomfortable. The wind blows my hair all over the place, so I tuck it behind my ear and turn my head to look down in the yard for her. _There she is._

She's sitting on the edge of the deck with her feet inside the pool, talking to one of the many little children floating around inside the water. I slowly walk down the brick steps that lead down to the yard and walk over to the pool. I kind of want to tell her about the text message I just received but she told me no talking about Alex this weekend so I'll just keep it to myself, even if I do need someone to vent to. I walk up the steps of the deck that's attached to the pool to go sit down next to her. I kick my sandals off and slip my feet inside the water as I sit down next to Stephanie. She introduced me to the host of little cousins that are in the pool but I don't remember their names. The only people that are currently inside the pool that I know the name of are her two brothers and her sister that's holding a little baby inside a floatation device. "Do you still consider this the weekend?" I turn my head and look at her. "Because I really have to tell you something about him."

"No. I told you I don't want to hear anything about Alex this weekend and that's what I meant. You've got to learn to have fun without thinking about him." She tilts her head back and looks up at the sky. "…It's a beautiful day and we only have until tomorrow before we go back to being surgeons and making stressful, life-saving decisions. I'm trying to enjoy this day with my best friend but you won't let me." She takes a deep breath, inhaling the fresh, sunny air. "No Alex for 24 more hours… can you do that for me? Please Jo?"

"…Yeah." I swing my feet in the water and stare down at them. I guess she's right. This whole weekend I didn't have to worry about if the right IV was going to the wrong person, I didn't have to fret about if I was gonna push one of morphine and arrest someone's heart or whatever. I didn't have to worry about being a surgeon and impressing residents and attendings that hate my guts. I'm relaxed here with my best friend…enjoying the moment. She's right. I grab my hair and move it from the middle of my back because it's starting to make my back sweat. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I don't want to go back to my miserable life in Seattle. I swing my feet in the water some more before I notice that her older brother, Steven is coming directly at me.

Steph kicks some water at him with both her feet. "Why do you always have to come over here bothering people? Why can't you just mind your business and let me mind mine?" Despite Steph's vigorous splashing at him with water, he still wades over towards us, nestling himself snugly between where I'm sitting and where Steph's sitting. He rests his elbows on the ledge of the deck and ignores her, his attention clearly and visibly on me.

"So when do I get your number?" He gazes up at me, demanding my attention so I look down and make eye contact with him. I crack a smile because he literally doesn't take no for an answer. I told him yesterday that I wasn't gonna give him my number and I told him again this morning that he wasn't getting it. He's persistent, I'll give him that. I just shake my head at him. "Are you playing hard to get or are you just this damn hard to get?"

"…Little bit of both." I use my special flirting voice to talk to him. I got my mojo back with the flirting thing by the way. I can flirt again and I'm just as good at is as I've ever been. But I'm still not interested in either one of Steph's brothers. Neither one of them are ugly but neither one of them are Alex so they don't cut it for me. Steph told me she wouldn't care if I played around with her brothers and teased them a little bit. She told me that they're pervs so they get what they deserve if I tease them. So I might as well have a little bit of fun with it. "What would Courtney think if I gave you my number?" I'm pretty sure that's what Steph told me his girlfriend's name was. It was either Courtney or Carrie but I'm pretty sure it's Courtney. "Sorry but I'm not in the business of homewrecking." Though that's kind of a lie because I did have sex with my married professor…and my engaged boss. Fuck.

"Courtney?!" The tone of his voice raises a whole pitch so I can tell that he's guilty. It's too easy to mess with him. "She's nothing. She was just someone I had fun with." He puts his wet hands on my bare kneecaps and moves them along with the motion of me swinging my feet inside the water. "I told you I'm single." I bite my lip to hold back some hard laughter. Now why would I believe that? Stephanie told me this morning that he has a girlfriend. Why would I believe him when he says he doesn't? He starts rubbing the inner parts of my knees with his thumbs and Steph gives him a nice, hard slap across the back.

"Get off her. I told you she's not interested. Don't you have someone else to bother?" She barks at him. She seems really annoyed. "You and Stew are such pervs. You wonder why none of my friends ever came over when we were younger it's because you two are creepy as hell." She kicks him in his shoulder pretty hard but he's such a big guy that he doesn't even budge. "Seriously Steven! Go away!" She sighs hard, irritably. "Jo is he bothering you?"

"It's okay Steph." He's just touching my legs. I don't really need him to touch me, that's for certain, but it's not bothering me that bad. It's not like he's grabbing my ass or something, he's just touching my legs. I just don't want her to get all mad and stuff for no reason because he's really not bothering me that badly. He's creeping me out sure but it's not the first time I've gotten this kind of attention from a boy and this is pretty tame compared to what I'm used to. "I know you're not single though. And I'm not exactly interested." I stop swinging my legs and glance down at him.

"You're not her type." Steph chimes in with me.

And I guess she's right about that. He's not my type. He used to be my type. If he was flirting with the Jo I used to be back in college, I'd be all over him. I would've given him my number the first time he asked without any hesitation and there would be no playing hard to get. But he's flirting with the surgical intern/corrupted by Alex Karev Jo and her type has definitely changed. She's into a six foot man with pale white skin, broad shoulders, lots of muscles, fluffy brown hair, brown eyes, a goofy smile and the softest lips in the world. Oh, he's perfect. And yeah…

I still want him.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Karev, you sure you're alright to work today?" Chief Hunt pulls me aside at the nurses' station when I grab an electronic chart. Everyone sounds so surprised to see me back at work and I can't figure out why. Yes Izzie's sick but she's doing a lot better than she was doing on Saturday when they let her come home. I took yesterday off to make sure she's doing okay and now I'm back at work. I'm a resident; one day is already more than I can afford to take off. I'm fine to be at work. "You know you can take the day off if you need it, don't you? Robbins wasn't expecting you back so if you need some extra time…"

"I'm okay…really, I am. I'm okay, Izzie's okay… I'm just ready to get back to work." I punch my code into the chart to get myself logged in so I can see what kind of procedures Arizona has planned to do today. Please believe me, I need to work. I don't need to spend all day in the house looking after Iz. I'll be miserable and Iz will be miserable right along with me because she hates when I'm breathing down her neck about taking care of herself. "What intern do I have for the day?" _Please don't say Wilson. Whatever you do, don't say Wilson. PLEASE don't say Wilson._

"Brooks is on Pediatrics for the day, go down to the locker room and grab her and you can start your day." He pats me on my shoulder and goes on about his business. See if I was an outsider that didn't know any better, I'd swear that Hunt and Kepner are brother and sister. They're a lot alike in the sense that neither one of them harp. Hunt doesn't harp on something for too long and Kepner doesn't either. Both of them don't see the sense in beating a dead horse and as a guy that likes to keep my business to myself, I genuinely respect that. "Oh and Karev…" Hunt stops walking for a moment as if he forgot something. I look up from the chart in my hand and give him my attention. "Robbins did ask to see you… so go find her before you start anything."

"I got it." When he's done telling me what he needed to tell me, I look back down at the chart. Looks like it's gonna be a busy day on Pediatrics today. Robbins has me scheduled to scrub in on a nine year old kid with Short Gut Syndrome, a double hip replacement for a thirteen year old and a two week old with Pyloric. I'm grateful to be busy today…means my mind will be occupied. I shove the electronic chart in my pocket and walk towards the nearest elevator. I have a feeling that today's gonna be a pretty good day. I don't have to work with Jo so I won't be distracted and I'm getting three complex surgeries in one day. Yep, today's gonna be good.

I think the issue with Jo is finally resolved. I sent her that text message on Saturday to let her know that we're done and I'm serious this time and although she read the text, she never messaged back. I think her not replying was a good thing. It's Monday now so she's had two days to sit and ponder about it and still….nothing. So maybe she gets the idea and she understands and she's fine with it. I'll be professional with her of course because there will be some times that I can't avoid her at all costs but I don't want to deal with her on a personal level anymore.

Once I get off the elevator, I go over to the nurses' station on the Peds floor and lean against the countertop while I wait for Robbins to get done talking to Torres. They're discussing something about the thirteen year old hip replacement it sounds like, so I'll just wait. I take the chart out of my pocket and pretend to be busy scrolling through it so I don't look like the loser resident waiting for my attending to bark orders at me. I skim through the chart system just to be productive, but wait… Arizona comes bounding over to me all happy and preppy like she usually is. "You didn't do rounds on the floor yet? Aren't you late?" I'm sure that's not what she told the chief to send me to her for but I just noticed that she hasn't done morning rounds yet and if I don't say something now, I'll forget in about thirty seconds.

"Yes, that's exactly why I wanted to see you." She grabs the chart off me and stares at it for a moment. "I have a crap-ton of pre and post ops to finish before we go into surgery and I'm behind so I need you to do rounds on the floor and I need you to do rounds in the NICU… all before 10:30." She gives me those ice blue puppy dog eyes and even if she wasn't my superior, I still couldn't say no to her. Arizona has that effect on me sometimes. I just find it increasingly hard to say something disappointing or witty to her when she acts like this.

"10:30? It's 9:00 right now! You want me to round on two different sections…that'll take me at least two hours… I can't do that!"

"Which is why I got you some help!" She flashes her pearly white teeth at me. "Brooks is gonna help me with my pre and post ops and I got you the best intern ever to help you with rounds." _PLEASE DON'T SAY… _"Wilson's on her way up here right now." _Throw me a frickin' bone here. COME ON. _

"Wait, come on… can't we switch? I've never had the opportunity to teach Brooks yet… I've taught Jo more than any other intern. Can I just have Brooks for the day instead?"

"If you wanna teach Brooks so bad, I'll put her on my service again tomorrow and you can teach her all day. You're gonna need Wilson's skills to help you with all that rounding. You said yourself that she changes a baby's IV fluids quicker than you could've ever dreamed of when you were an intern." She glances over her shoulder for a moment then back down at the chart then back over her shoulder. "Wilson! There you are!"

"…You paged me 911?" Jo's eyes go immediately to Arizona. She doesn't even bother looking at me and I can tell that something's wrong with her. It bothers me how I can tell when she's not feeling right. I don't like knowing what it means when she bites on her bottom lip when she's talking to someone. I wish I didn't know that when she holds her arm in her hand and looks down, it means she's upset about something. I wish I didn't know all these things about her…it would be a lot easier if she was just a stranger. She looks really comfortable. She's wearing a long sleeved green thermal shirt underneath her scrubs and her hair is tied back in a low ponytail that rests in messy waves and curls in the middle of her back.

"Yeah, Dr. Karev has to round on the Pediatrics floor as well as in the NICU as well… I need you to help him out so he gets everything done by about 10:30, 10:45 at the latest. Can you do that for me?" Jo nods her head but looks down at her feet. "Great. The two of you come find me when you're finished." Arizona leaves us alone and hurries off with Brooks in the direction opposite of where Jo and I will be headed.

She doesn't want to be here just as much as I don't want her to be here, I can tell. She pokes around at her pager pretending to be really interested in it while I just stand back and look at her. She's mouthing something to herself but she's mouthing so fast that I think she's singing something. _I can do this. She's nothing but an intern. Nothing but an intern that I slept with…no more, no less. She's nothing. I can do this. _I drudge my teeth together and pick up the chart off the countertop of the nurses' station. _Just be professional. _"We'll… start in the NICU." I mumble and she doesn't do anything but nod and follow me when I start walking to the NICU.

Like she's been working in the NICU all her life, she robotically sticks her hand underneath the automatic dispenser and scrubs her hands pretty roughly with the hand sanitizer dispensed on her hand. Jo really is the best intern in her class and I'm not just saying that because I slept with her. I'm saying that because she picks up on things quickly, she retains a lot of information that she obtains, she's quick and her hands are delicate. She's good at what she does and I'm glad that Robbins didn't stick me with a complete imbecile. Still, I wish I didn't have to deal with her today. The wounds are still fresh, you know? It's been a week since we've spoken to each other, a week since I slept with her, a week since I've felt…complete.

"…P..Parker Landry." She starts to present when we get to the first baby's incubator. "Born at 28 weeks gestation, currently receiving steroid injects to help mature his lungs. Vitals are stable and have been for the last….week. He's getting stronger and once he's strong enough, Dr. Shepherd will place a shunt to drain fluid in baby Parker's brain." She looks down at the tiny little guy with nothing but adoration in her eyes. I wonder why she's so good with kids and she's so in love with babies but she doesn't want kids of her own someday. I could see Jo being a mom to somebody, she's already so good with kids. She knows what she's doing so I just let her go ahead and do it. She unhinges the incubator and opens it up. "His last output was only at 5CCs… shouldn't it be higher?" She touches the baby's head with her index finger and strokes the little bit of peach fuzz he's got forward.

She yanks two purple gloves on her hands. "No he's fine for being born 12 weeks premature." I observe while she gently takes the IV out of the baby's arm and properly disposes of it. She grabs a new IV kit from the drawer below the incubator and re-sterilizes the baby's entire arm, just like I taught her to. She identifies the usable vein in seconds before she twists her hand at an angle so she can get the IV in right. It's quiet between the two of us which is awkward. I don't want to deal with her on a personal level but I don't want to work with her all day if it's gonna be dead silent and awkward as hell. She tapes the IV on perfectly. "You should seriously consider Peds as a specialty, Wilson. You've got the most gentle hands…"

"You can still call me Jo, you know… I don't have to get bumped all the way back down to 'Wilson'." She throws away all the garbage from placing the IV and closes the baby's incubator back up so we can move on to the next one. "And I don't know, I kind of like Orthopedics with Dr. Torres." She takes off her gloves and throws them away too. "Ortho's stress relieving. I don't get my kicks out of watching babies die left and right. I'd rather let my anger out on a specialty than watch babies die."

"So you wanna break bones because you're angry?"

"I have a lot to be angry about these days." She shrugs her shoulders and goes to the next incubator to present. "Ella Donnelly, one month and two days old today. She's awaiting a heart transplant…been on the transplant list since she was born. An artificial valve might be curative at this point but she's still too weak to try." She's talking really fast all of a sudden which is a dead giveaway that she's irritated for some reason. "Give me gloves."

"Dr. Wilson, chill out." I grab a pair of gloves from the dispenser behind me and hand them to her. "Can't imagine what you could possibly have to be angry about. You're alive, you're well, you're a talented surgeon in training… can't possibly think of a reason you would have to be angry enough to go to a brutal specialty like Orthopedics." She glares at me like she would stab me with the IV needle if she could. "If you have so much to be angry about then spill."

She slams down the new IV kit and just looks at me. With a smile on her face that's not from any means of her being happy, she shakes her head and focuses her attention back on the baby. Here's a word to the wise: You know a girl is crazy if she smiles when she's pissed off. Your girl is CRAZY if she's smiling when she's angry and you should RUN. "So I have this asshole of a boyfriend… friend… friend with benefits… a _fuckbuddy _if that's what you want to call it, right?" I crack a smirk because she's so mad…and it's hot when she's mad. "Yeah, so I have this asshole who thinks it's okay to just… mess around with my mind. You know, one minute he's kissing me and telling me that he really likes me and he's all over me and we're intimate for two and a half hours one night last week. Then the next day he kicks me to the curb like I never meant anything to him. I don't even get a kiss goodbye or a hug see you later. Nope. You know what I get? I get a stupid fucking text message out of nowhere. A text message. I don't get a proper goodbye, I just get a text message. And then he treats me like… like I'm invisible. Like nothing ever happened. And every time I try to be done with his sorry, pathetic, stupid, idiotic, asshole ass… he won't let me." The whole time she was talking to me, she was putting in the IV and she did it flawlessly. "So yeah… I have a lot to be angry about these days. What about you, Dr. Karev? Anything that's been making you feel shitty lately? Anything at all?" I open my mouth to talk but she won't let me. "Of course not. Of course there's nothing that's making you feel shitty. You're Alex freaking Karev… you just walk around like you're King Tut, I forgot. If there was anything you were feeling shitty about, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"

"…So there's this girl." I help her clean up. "And this girl is the most…" I sigh and just look at the baby because it's easier than looking at her while I try to find a way to phrase this. "This girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Her eyes… her eyes are what I fall asleep picturing at night and her smile… her smile could bring even the coldest of men to tears. She's absolutely beautiful but she doesn't know that I think she's beautiful…at least I don't think she knows." I look up at her to see her smiling, but it's still that pissed off smile…not a happy smile. "Did I ever mention how perfect this girl is? She's about… 5'6 maybe 120 pounds. Nice rack…GREAT ass. Best sex I've ever had in my life too. Brown hair and boring brown eyes but her brown eyes are the prettiest brown eyes I've ever seen, so…" _Okay, down to business. Down to what you mean. _"But even though my girl is as perfect as anyone I've ever seen in my dreams… she's a little bit dumb. She's dumb, insensitive and downright clueless. And she's a little bit selfish. She doesn't understand that I have other obligations that don't include her. And she thinks that I do everything just to hurt her when in reality, I try to come up with things that won't hurt her while I protect the feelings of someone else. And I don't know how to tell my pretty brown eyed girl that I'm not in love with her. I don't know how to explain to her that things are much more complicated than she'll ever know. I need an out on my engagement because I don't want to get married, but an out isn't hard to come by. I had a lot of fun with the pretty brown eyes… a lot of fun. And I care about her. I care about my pretty brown eyes a whole lot and I never want to see her sad but instead of understanding… instead of trying to comprehend that things aren't that simple… my pretty brown eyes would rather spend her life hating me."

"Can you blame her, though? Dickhead made her feel like she actually meant something to her." _How does she get a nickname like "pretty brown eyes" and I get stuck with something like "dickhead"? _"Dickhead made her feel like she really mattered for a minute… and that felt really good." She's about to cry because her eyes are sparkling. I love the way her eyes sparkle just before she starts to cry but I wish she didn't have to cry to make them sparkle like that. "For the first time in her life, she felt like she found something good and unchanging and she felt like she mattered…and that was his fault." She turns her back to me and as much as I want to comfort her, I won't. No emotions with her. I can't. "She gets that dickhead can't just up and leave. She gets that. But she doesn't get why dickhead has to be such a… _dickhead _towards her. He made her feel special, he made her feel like she mattered to him and he just… pissed all over her. So if she wants to spend her life hating him, I think she's perfectly justified in doing that."

"If she gets that, then why does Princess Bitch insist on making him feel like an ass? Trust me, he KNOWS that he's been an asshole. He knows that Princess Bitch is mad at him and he doesn't want her to be but what other choice does he have? If she says she gets it then why doesn't she just shut up about it, stop throwing it in his face and at least try to act like she wants to be supportive? Huh? Why can't Princess Bitch do that? What's so wrong with being friends with benefits? Because he needs someone to be there for him."

"…What about me, Alex?!" She turns around to face me and her entire face is bloodshot red, her eyes are so red-rimmed and puffy that she looks like she has allergies and her cheeks are soaking wet from tears. "How the hell am I supposed to support that? How do you expect me to be supportive for something I don't want? You want me to support you sticking with Izzie? Fine, I pat you on the back for that because she's sick and that takes a lot of balls for a man to stay with his sick significant other but if you're standing around waiting for me to be the supportive best friend that you can call crying because your wife's dying on you then you'll be waiting for a long time because I can't do that." She wipes her face with the sleeve of her scrub top and starts to walk away.

"Jo, wait… wait."

"There is no waiting! There's no waiting for you! Because I'll wait…and I'll be waiting for a long time because I don't know what else I can do because if I can't shake you off then that's all I'll ever be doing is waiting for you and… when does waiting become enough? When is enough waiting enough? I can't wait forever for you to get yourself together and decide if you want to stop fucking with my head or not. I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life then sit around waiting for you." She's breathing really heavy and crying so hard that she can't catch her breath. I really messed her up… I really messed her up bad.

I've never seen Jo like this before. I'm worried about her… "You gotta calm down… you gotta calm down, Jo…okay?"

"YOU CALM DOWN!" She grabs ahold of my white coat with a DEATH grip. "You calm down! Because all I am to you is just a booty call, right?" She grips my coat tighter and I never realized just how strong this little itty bitty girl is. If she was holding onto my skin like this, she would've broken skin. "All I am and all I will ever be to you is someone you had sex with…and you want me to settle and keep being that. You want me to sit around at your expense, just wishing and hoping and praying that MAYBE you might get the balls to leave her one day? I get that you don't love me, Alex… I get that. I never asked for you to love me because I know that's a lot to ask of you. But I think you at least owe it to me to be a decent human being…and you couldn't even do that." She lets me go finally and shakes her head. "And what balls you have to ask me to be your whore." She pushes me hard against the wall. "But you know… Alex gets what Alex wants, even if he has to piss on Jo to get it. Alex wants to be friends with benefits? Fine."

She turns away from me again and starts walking out of the NICU. I have half a mind to go after her but the last time I went after her when she was walking away, she gripped me up so tight that she could've choked me to death. So I'll just let her go.

Plus, I have to finish rounds anyway.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

If there's anything good that came out of that conversation, it's definitely the fact that I exercised some restraint and didn't break off in his ass like I wanted to. I really wanted to hurt him so bad because he hurt me in the worst way and I just feel like causing him physical pain is the only compensation for the emotional pain he's caused me. I really could have choked him to death or kicked him in his balls or just really, really hurt him. I had his white coat in my hands and I was looking at him and all I saw was RED. The color red, literally. And I don't know how but sometime during me having him gripped up so tight that my hands cramped up in the position, I saw him and I saw those brown eyes that make me melt and I knew somewhere there was that goofy smile and I talked myself out of hurting that man.

I need to go to an on-call room for a little while until I cool off. I can't work while I'm like this and I just can't be around people. I haven't been this fucked up since I was in college and I was in jail for two days. I was so messed up in there. I mean I know I'm not crazy and I know there's nothing seriously wrong with me but the way I get when I'm feeling like this, I could definitely get admitted to a psych ward or something. I'm not crazy I just have really bad anger problems and when the anger problems come out of me in full fledge like this it's just really hard for me to stop. I'm so not calm right now. I'm the furthest thing away from calm. I just need a moment.

I'm not selfish. I swear I'm not selfish. I understand completely what he means when he says that he can't just leave Izzie. I swear I understand that. But seriously, what about me? What about my feelings? Why do I just get tossed away like garbage? Why don't I matter? What is it gonna take for me to matter to someone for once in my fucking life? Nobody cares about Jo. Story of my fucking life but WHY does anyone care about me? What is it about me? I'm unlovable or something. Fuck my feelings. Fuck Jo, you know? As long as everyone else in the universe is happy, why the hell does it matter if Jo's happy? Alex is happy. Izzie is happy. Jo who?

I think he's got me all mixed up. He took my words out of context. I'm NOT asking him to leave Izzie. I'm not asking him to ditch her and be with me—I would never do that. I'm just asking him to consider my feelings, you know? It's like he doesn't even care about how anything makes me feel. I'm not asking him to break off his engagement and be with me but I AM asking him to just think about me for once. Think about me. Factor in my feelings. Actually acknowledge the fact that even though I'm nothing but a shitty little street kid, I do have feelings. HE did this to me and he doesn't even acknowledge that. HE made me feel like I mattered to him, HE made me feel like I was important to him, HE fucked my head all up. It's HIS fault.

I look around to make sure nobody sees me before I open up the first on-call room I see. I slip inside and shut the door behind myself. I can't make it to the bed to sit down so I just collapse onto the floor and sit with my back against the wall and my knees pulled into my chest. "You're okay… it's okay…" I put my forehead against my knees and bury my face inside my legs while I cry. "You're okay…" Call me crazy but I do talk to myself sometimes. I've just been comforting myself and telling myself that it's okay for a really long time now so it helps sometimes when I'm really upset to have myself to cheer myself up. I always do this too. I always burrow my face in my knees and rock back and forth when I cry this hard. Always.

The first time I remember ever having to comfort myself like this was in my second foster home. I was eight and I was outside playing around with the hose with the other four foster kids that lived with me. We made mud with hose and I accidentally tracked it all inside the house on the carpet and stuff. My foster dad grabbed me up and put me in the bathroom with him with the door shut. He made me pull down my pants, underwear included, and he took off his belt and whipped me with it until he got tired…which was a long time. I remember being so sore and hurt around my butt the next day that I couldn't even sit down on the toilet to use the bathroom. I put my face inside my knees when he finally left me alone because as a child, I found it comforting to not be able to see things around me when things got bad. It worked and I've been comforting myself like this ever since then. Nobody else is gonna tell me that it's okay, so why don't I just tell myself?

"…You're okay. You are. You're okay." I pick my face up and fan myself with both my hands. My stomach muscles hurt from sobbing. They ache like I just spent a long time laughing. My eyes feel so heavy and weighed down. My head is pounding and my jaw won't stop trembling. But I'm okay. I'm gonna be fine. I just had a little breakdown for a moment. I grab the top of my shirt and pull it over my face so I have something to wipe myself off with. I rub my eyes hard with the cloth of my shirt and take a breath. I put my hands down on the floor next to my legs and pick my sorry self up off the floor. I stumble backwards into the door when I stand up because I'm lightheaded from crying so hard.

"You're fine." I whisper to myself again as I walk slowly over to the bed. I just need to lie down for about ten minutes until my headache and wooziness is gone. I can't let myself get this upset at work anymore because it takes me too long to calm myself down. I lie down and put my head facedown into the pillow. I just need this to stop hurting so bad. I need this to stop hurting me like this. This hurts so bad I can't take it anymore. I'm hurting over this and I swear I feel like every time I talk to him, I'm less of a person. He takes pieces of me away and I can't keep doing this. I close my eyes and take a deep, calming breath.

**X X X **

"Jo…" I feel hands against my back, shaking me in a gentle rocking motion. _Steph? _"Jo… Jo…" Along with the hands, I feel someone's breath on my face, lips grazing my earlobe. "Wake up, okay?" Those same lips push against my temple. _Not Steph… At least I hope Steph's not kissing me. What the hell? _I open up one of my eyes and it's so sore that it immediately starts to water when I open it. It's really dark in here and all I feel is soreness and stiffness in my entire body. Someone is sitting next to me with their hands on my back and their lips to my head.

"Mmm…" I groan in pain when I pick my head up off the pillow. Wow. I've got the worst headache. And why was my face smashed into a pillow? _HOLY SHIT. I FELL ASLEEP, DIDN'T I? _"Oh my god, what time is it?! I'm late for rounds!" I spring up so fast that I almost crack my skull clean off the bars of the top bunk bed. "Oh my god…" _I cried myself to sleep… how stupid am I?_

"Hey, chill out." The same hands that were on my back touch my face to calm me down. "You're fine. I finished all our rounds about an hour ago." Alex? "You've only been out for an hour, hour and a half. It's fine."

"Why are you here?" My sweaty, matted ponytail is sticking to the back of my neck. I cover my mouth and yawn. "Aren't you mad at me?"

"…Not as mad as I am at myself." He mutters, standing up off the bed. He grabs me by my arm and gently helps me up. "I told Robbins I had you running some labs for me so she doesn't know. I thought I owed you at least a nap." He leads me to the door because obviously I'm still really groggy. I can't just knock out like that, although that nap instantly took my horrible mood away. I'm feeling better but still upset. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Me too."

"Friends?"

"Nothing more than friends?" I ask for clarification. "You kind of kissed me on my cheek…"

"I can't promise you that…but I'll try." He opens up the door to the on-call room. "Come on. You need to get back to work."


	27. Stand Up

"Edwards…" I stop her as she's walking up the hallway. She freezes with a stack of folders in her hands as she turns around to face me. I wonder if she's this skittish around all the other interns or if it's just me. I kind of get the feeling that Edwards doesn't like me but I don't really care about that. I didn't really expect her to like me because she's Jo's best friend so of course she's gonna side with her. She's headed towards the CCU so she must be with Cristina today. I'll make it quick and easy because I know how much work Cristina throws on her interns and I know that Edwards doesn't have twenty minutes to spare to talk to me. Good thing I only have one question to ask her though. "You see Jo around?" Short, sweet, straight to the point. If anyone would know where Jo disappeared to, it'd be her.

"No…" She wrinkles her eyebrows at me and looks around like she's gonna find Jo behind me or something. "She should be with you, shouldn't she? Dr. Robbins paged her 911 this morning. She was pretty bummed out about being on Peds this morning but that's the last time I've seen her. She should be on Peds…" I roll my eyes and just shake my head. Of course she doesn't know where she is. She's just like the rest of the stupid interns; she doesn't know anything. I know where Jo SHOULD be but I'm asking where she IS. "Why? Is she alright?"

"She's fine, I just need to find her." I pick my pager out of my pocket and punch the numbers in to page her for the sixth time in the last hour. She's not answering her pager and nobody knows where she is. "Go back to work." I mutter to Stephanie and turn the other way to go check back on the Peds floor. I've scoured his hospital in search of her and I just don't know where she is. I wasn't worried ten minutes ago but now that Edwards even said that she hasn't seen her, I'm starting to get worried. She was in very rare form during rounds when she was yelling at me and I've never seen her act like that before. I really hope she's okay and not lying dead somewhere. I don't know why that's the first place my mind went. Maybe because I've dealt with enough crazy chicks in my life that I don't rule out suicide attempts right off the bat. Anyway, I've checked the tunnels, outside in the back, outside in the front, the little girl's room that she visits on Peds, the bathrooms, the intern locker rooms. I've checked everywhere and I can't find her.

I really need to find her. I owe her an apology first and foremost and I just need to know that's she's okay at this point because my imagination is running wild. She never did strike me as the suicidal type but she was pretty messed up the last time I saw her and now she's missing in a building full of medicines she could overdose on, scalpels she could cut herself with and high floors that she could throw herself off of. I know I make it seem like I'd be okay without her but I really wouldn't be. I don't know what I'll do if I do end up finding her dead somewhere in this hospital. She won't even answer her phone and I've been texting and calling her nonstop within the last hour. _I knew I should've just gone after her from the start. She was mad at me and I didn't want her to end up getting in trouble for hitting me again but that's the chance I should've taken. Now I don't know where she is, all because I decided to finish rounds before I went after her. I'm so stupid._

I've got Robbins thinking that I sent her to run labs for me so she doesn't even know that I can't find her. The only places I haven't checked are the on-call rooms and I know she's not in any of those. Still, I'm putting all my hope into her actually being somewhere in this hospital. What if she took off and went home, all because I never think about her feelings? Her words just keep ringing in my head over and over again. I made her feel like she mattered to me. I made her feel like she actually had a chance. I messed with her head and she blames me for everything. I blame myself too for the most part. I just really need to find her. When I find her, I'll apologize to her if she's alive and well. I'll tell her that I'm sorry and I'll give her a hug and I swear I'll try to be her friend. I put my hands in my pockets and my shoulders instinctively slouch to mirror my mood.

I trudge up the steps to the Pediatric floor in hopes that maybe she'll be there at the nurses' station waiting for me. Sighing, I go over to the nurses' station to look around. Nope. The only person waiting for me is Arizona. "Alex!" She hands the nurse some consent forms to file away for her before she tucks a little bit of her bob-cut blonde hair behind her ear and looks at me. "Where's Wilson? You must've given her a bunch of labs to run, geez." I open my mouth to tell her that I don't know where Jo is but for the second time today, I'm cut off before I even start to talk. "Go eat and drink something. I want to see you in OR 3 in an hour for our Pyloric baby." She doesn't say anything else before she leaves me and goes off in the direction of the elevator. That's one thing about Robbins that I don't like. She can be a little bit oblivious to things at times.

I look down at my watch to see what time it is. 11:55. I have to be in surgery by 1:00. I have an hour left to find her. I sink my hands back inside my pockets and walk back towards the NICU so I can retrace my steps as if Jo's my cell phone and I'm trying to backtrack until I found her. Like I lost her instead of not being able to find her. I have to find my Jo before I go into surgery otherwise I'm gonna screw up. My mind will be on her instead of focused on the baby we're operating on and I'll mess up. I have to find my Jo and I'm not kidding. I squeeze past the incubators in the NICU and look around. She's not in here, of course. Fuck it, I'm checking EVERYWHERE for her. I'm starting to panic really bad and my head is reeling.

I walk fast, but not fast enough to implicate myself, and leave the NICU. On my way towards the regular Peds floor, I pass an on-call room. I twist the handle and it's open which pretty much tells me that she's not in there because the door would be locked if she was but I'm looking EVERYWHERE. I step inside the room and flip the light on. "Crap…" I mumble under my breath as I turn the light back out. There's a body lying face down on the bed and the only thing that persuades me to shut the door behind myself is the fact that I'd recognize those messy waves and curls anywhere. Thank GOD she's okay.

I walk softly over to the bed, careful not to wake her up. I put my hand against her back to make sure she's breathing and she is. I could burst into tears, that's how happy I am that I found her and I found her okay. She's just asleep. I don't want to wake her up. She's lying in the middle of the bed so there's a little bit of room for me. I sit down quietly and lie down next to her in the bed. She doesn't even budge. She's lying flat on her stomach with her arms up underneath the pillow and her head is turned to the side. I never realized how chubby her cheeks were until I saw them smashed against the pillow while she's sleeping. I can't help myself…I just have to touch her. I move her hair out of her face and lie on the pillow with her so that we're face to face. I'm so glad she's okay. I wish I could make her lay on me without waking her up. I kind of just want to hold her but I don't want to wake her up. I've been an asshole to her lately, the least I can do is give her a decent nap.

I lean forward just slightly and kiss her on her lips. Her eyebrows flex when I do that but her face relaxes again after a while. I reach underneath the pillow and grab her hand. She's a pretty heavy sleeper because she just lets me. I stroke her knuckles with my thumb and stare at her fingers. Her fingers are so slender and short, like a child's hands. Her fingernails are long but neatly trimmed and clean. Her finger would look really pretty with a ring on it, I think. Just like the rest of her body, she has a little brown beauty mark on her wrist. Her body is decorated with a million of them; like someone rolled her in brown beauty marks when she was a baby and never took them off. They're all over her body.

She inhales deeply and when she exhales, a really faint moan escapes her throat. I'm not sure if that was a snore or if it was a legit moan. The last time we fell asleep together in an on-call room, I noticed that she was moaning in her sleep then as well. Maybe it's how she snores, I don't know. It doesn't sound like a snore though because most snores are nasally and annoying but her moan is soft and innocent, like the moan you hear a child make when she's crying really hard. And she doesn't do it often enough for it to be a snore. I don't know why she moans in her sleep but she does and while it's not annoying in the least, it's puzzling. I'd listen to her moan in her sleep forever; at least I know she's alive when she does it. I just want to sit here and watch her sleep for the rest of the day. She's peaceful and I like that. I never realized just how much she meant to me until I spent the last half hour thinking she might've been dead.

I press my lips to her cheek just as she moves her body slightly. Her cheek is salty. _Was she in here… _I move her hair out of her face some more so I can look at her face. _Crying? _She wore a little bit of makeup to work today and the only reason I know that is because I see it all over the pillow when I move her hair to the side and it's all over her cheeks. I made her cry like that? She wasn't even crying hard enough to make her makeup run whenever she pushed me into the wall earlier. She must've cried really hard in here. I'll let her sleep for a little while longer. I sit up in the bed and grab onto her ponytail. Her hair is so thick that it's heavy for me to pick up, but I start to play with it anyway. I've never been very good at apologies but I owe her one. _What would I say to her if she was awake right now? What would I say if this was the last time I'd ever get to talk to her again?_

"I'm sorry, Jo." I undo the braid I just put in her hair and leave it alone. "Really I am." I look down at her face. She's so beautiful. She doesn't deserve anything I've put her through but I really can't help anything. She doesn't deserve me. She deserves better than me. I'm not good enough for anyone and especially not Jo. She's good. She came from shit like I did but she's better than me. She's good and she's a decent person and she's sweet and she doesn't deserve me. And I know I tell her to leave me alone all the time but in reality? It's me. I can't leave her alone. I've been so horrible to her but I swear on my life that I never meant to hurt her. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. "I'm so sorry Jo. I do care about you, I just… I don't know how to care about you and her at the same time. But I promise I'll learn. I'll learn how to care about you and her. I'll learn and I'll do better. Okay? I can't… I can't really give you anything but I'll give you my promise. That's all I can give you but I don't break promises. I don't. I'm just sorry." I kiss the top of her head and let her sleep some more.

I wonder if she cried herself to sleep. It looks like she did but I'm not sure. Her face is all dirtied with makeup that ran and she looks like she fell asleep unexpectedly because her shoes are still on and stuff. I think she cried herself to sleep. And right on cue, she moans again. I guess I'd better wake her up now. She's been sleeping for a while I'm assuming. If she fell asleep soon after she left me at rounds, she's been sleep for about an hour and a half. I put my hands against her back and shake her softly. "Jo…" I lean down to her ear so I don't have to talk too loud. "Wake up, okay?" I slide my lips from her ear up to her temple. She opens up one of her eyes and closes it again. _Wake up babe…_

She picks her head up off the pillow and her face tunes up like it hurts. "Mmm…" She groans holds her body up with her elbows. She sounds like she's in some degree of pain. Her hair falls in front of her face when she tilts her head to the side. "Oh my god, what time is it?!" She jumps up so fast that she almost hits her head off the top bunk. "I'm late for rounds!" She puts her hands over her face. "Oh my god…" When she takes her hands away, I can see that her face is flushed bright red even though it's dark in here.

"Hey, chill out." I put my hands on her face and hold her head still. I really want to kiss her but I won't just in case she doesn't want to kiss me. She's probably still mad at me and even madder now that I woke her up from a dead sleep. "You're fine. I finished all our rounds about an hour ago." I wipe her eyes with my thumbs and take my hands away from her. "You've only been out for about an hour, hour and a half. You're fine."

"Why are you here?" She covers her mouth and yawns. "Aren't you mad at me?"

I get out of the bed and grab ahold of her arm. "…Not as mad as I am at myself." I mumble and gingerly help her out of the bed because she's still groggy with sleep. "I told Robbins I had you running some labs for me so she doesn't know. I thought I owed you at least a nap." I lead her over to the door, fixing her hair for her because she can't do it herself. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Me too." Just like earlier when we first saw each other after a week, she looks away from me and down at the floor.

"Friends?" I ask.

"Nothing more than friends?" She looks up at me. "You kind of kissed me on my cheek…"

"I can't promise you that…but I'll try." I open up the door to the on-call room and watch her eyes squint at the sudden light. "Come on. You need to get back to work." I walk out of the room before she does as if I can protect her from the light but I know I can't. I don't hear her footsteps walking behind me but before I can turn my head to check and see if she's there, I feel her arms wrap around my waist as she pulls me hard back into the on-call room. "…What are you doing, Jo?" Not that I mind her hugging me I just want to know why she's doing it. She doesn't say anything to me though so I shut the door again but not all the way so we can hug in private.

Her head is in the middle of my back and her arms are around my waist and her hands are below the waistband of my pants but not exactly on my junk. I don't think she even realizes how close she is to touching it though. "I missed you." She squeezes her arms around my waist and her hands slide up a little bit so they're on my lower stomach now. "Haven't talked to you in a week. I missed you." She strokes her fingers along my stomach and keeps her head still in the middle of my back. "And I'm sorry if I hurt you earlier. But I did miss you…"

"I missed you too." I admit, laying my hands on top of hers. "What are you doing later?" I turn my head to the side and look behind my back as best as I can. "You wanna go for a drink?"

"Depends." She puts her hands back to where they were before, just above my junk. "Are you asking me as my friend or my friend with benefits?"

"I know the water hole is poisoned this week so I'm not suggesting we do anything more than just a drink… so I guess I'm asking you as a friend."

"…I'm not on my period anymore, what the hell?" She laughs and I feel her body jolt from the laughter against my back. "I was on it last week…if I was bleeding for two weeks straight there would've been a serious problem." She sighs like she's happy. "But okay. Since you're asking as my friend and not my…friend with benefits. I'm free after 7:00 tonight."

"Well you act like I know how long those things are supposed to last." I chuckle too just because her laughter is enough to make me laugh. "But okay… I'll meet you at Joe's at 7:30 then?"

"7:30." I feel her nod her head on my back.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I think me and Alex are better now. We both vented our frustrations and we both apologized and I really feel like this might be okay. I realize that being his friend or his friend with benefits is so much better than being nothing to him. I was literally going crazy without talking to him for so long and now that I've got him back, I feel… better. I feel so much better. I don't think he's ever going to leave his wife for me and I still think that they're going to end up getting married which sucks but honestly, I'd rather be something to him than nothing at all. I just want to be something to him; I don't care what it is. I don't care if we never have sex again as long as I get to talk to him sometimes. I still blame him for making me fall for him but there's a certain extent to how much I can blame him for. I kind of blame myself in a sense as well because I knew he wasn't single when I decided to start to like him. I can't even explain how I started to like him either, I just did. I remember hating him at first. I remember thinking he was the most stuck up, pompous, arrogant asshole I've ever met in my entire life. Then somewhere along the lines he showed me he was different and he's actually the most beautiful person I've ever met. I don't know if what I feel for him is strong enough to throw the L word around yet but it's something. He's good and he's a kindhearted person and he's so beautiful. I'll admit that someone like me doesn't deserve someone as amazing as he is but the fact that he was ever interested in me…even if it was for two and a half hours for one night… that's enough for me. Someone like him wanted someone like me. I can die happy because of that.

"Hey…" Steph jogs lightly up the hallway until she's caught up with me. "Hey, why was Alex looking for you earlier? He said he hadn't seen you for a couple hours…everything alright?"

"Yeah we're fine. He just wanted me to get these labs for him." I keep walking up the hallway even though I know I'm walking in the direction opposite of where she's gonna want to go. I'm going to a doctor's appointment, she should be going to lunch. "We're on good terms with each other again. He apologized to me and I apologized to him and we understand each other now, I think." I don't feel like telling Steph all about my crying fit and my nap in the on-call room and everything that went into that. She gets tired of listening to me vent about Alex because she knows that we're usually on good terms again by the end of the week. So out of consideration for her feelings, I just won't mention it. "We're going out to get a drink later so I won't be home until later."

"…You better not sleep with him again." Playfully but with the intensity of meaning it, Steph nudges me with her elbow. "Seriously. If he tries it, just remember how messed up you were the first time. No sleeping with him, even if he does look at you with those eyes."

"He said that it's a friendly deal so I don't think we'll have sex tonight but even if we do, I'm prepared." I get to the elevator that I need to be on and push the button to call it to me. "I know everything, Steph. I'll be able to pull myself together if we do it again. And I really don't think I'll let myself do it again. I'd rather not be the slutty mistress he cheats on his wife with, yanno?" I roll my head around to crack my neck. "No matter if the sex is mind-blowingly amazing… I'd rather not keep doing it."

"That's the spirit." She gives me a side-hug and rubs my arm. "Okay now where are you going? The cafeteria is that way… what are you calling an elevator for?"

"You go 'head to the cafeteria. I have to go up to Family Planning. I have an appointment to get my birth control put back in. It'll take like two seconds at the most…I'll come down and join you when I'm done."

"Thought you said you didn't plan on having sex with him tonight, you liar."

I crack a smile. "I _don't _plan on having sex with anyone anytime soon. I made this appointment last Monday when I first noticed that it fell out. And just in case I DO participate in any…sexual activities…whether it be later on tonight or next week sometime…I want to be protected." The elevator opens up for me just as I complete that sentence. "You should just be glad that I'm taking the proper precautions to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Why can't you just say 'Yay Jo' and let me go?"

"Yay Jo." She laughs and rolls her eyes at me. "I'll catch you in a little while."

"See ya Steph." I step into the elevator and push the number three so I can go to the third floor. So anyway, this day is shaping up to be pretty okay. It started out shitty but it's ending on a decent note I think. Me and Alex are on good terms, I'm going out with him later and I'm in a better mood now that I took my nap. And I have to go get my birth control put back in then I can go have lunch with my best friend. It's shaping up to be good. And I didn't lie to Steph either. I don't plan on having sex with Alex tonight and I really don't want to ever have sex with him again. If I'm being honest, I don't think that I'll be able to abide by never having sex with him again but I'll try. I just don't want to keep being the one he's cheating with. I'd really like for the sex to be a one-time thing and the birth control appointment being scheduled on this day is purely a coincidence. I'd go get it put back even if I didn't have a date with Alex tonight.

I walk off the elevator as soon as it opens back up onto the third floor and go right over to the sign-in desk. I jot my name down on the sign-in sheet and take a seat next to a rack of magazines. I cross my arms across my chest and look around while I wait to be called back. There are so many weird pamphlets on the walls. _Unplanned Pregnancy. Teen Pregnancy. Syphilis. Gonorrhea. AIDS. HIV. Bacterial Vaginosis. _I wonder if anyone has ever seriously publicly grabbed an STD pamphlet and started reading it just sitting here. My gut's telling me no.

There are only two of us here in the waiting room so I think I should get called back fairly quickly because I do need to eat. I'm kind of hungry. My eyes wander over to the other lady waiting here with me. She looks to be about my age, maybe older. She's holding a baby on her lap smiling and cooing at it and she seems so happy with her little blue bundle of joy. See, I wish I was wired like that. I wish I had the gene that tells me to be enchanted by tiny little infants enough to coo at them and smile and want to hold them but I don't know why, I don't have that gene. Babies make me really nervous. I mean I think they're cute and all and I really like to make them smile while I'm working in the NICU with them but seriously, babies make me so nervous. I don't do shitty diapers, I hardly do pissy ones. I'd probably cry right along with it if it started crying on me and I'd scream back at it if it started screaming at me. I don't hate babies or anything but I HATE babies. Okay, I don't hate them but I just don't like them. They make me so incredibly nervous. I babysat once back in high school for my home ec teacher's daughter in law and it was a one year old I babysat and I couldn't handle it. I was ready to throw the kid out the window. Yeah, I like working with the babies in Peds and I think they're all super cute and smiley and happy and stuff but I could never take care of a kid on my own and that's that. I hate babies and babies hate me.

"Josephine Wilson?!" Some perky redheaded doctor calls me back from behind a door and I spring up. I'm ready to get this done and over with. I follow her back behind the doors and look around while I walk. "I'm Dr. Fox, the gynecologist of this practice." She's short and kind of pudgy but she's pretty. "So you're a doctor here?" She looks back at me while we're walking and I nod. "Are you new? I usually know the doctors around here, I don't think I've seen you around before." She stands aside and motions for me to go into a room with pink and purple walls. "Waist down."

"I'm an intern. I just started at the beginning of July." I untie the drawstrings on my pants and take them off. I slip my underwear off too. I use the step-stool and sit down on the exam table, pulling the little cloth over my naked bottom half while I sit. "Oh and you can call me Jo…"

"No wonder I don't know you. I haven't gotten in very good with the newbies yet." She sits down on a swivel stool and shuts her door. "So I see here on your chart that you're not due for an annual until next month which is good, I'll schedule that for you before you leave me today." She keeps flipping through something. "And you were on the pills for a few months back in your teenage years it says? How come that didn't work out for you, hon?" She clicks her pen and looks at me for the answer.

"I was irresponsible with it, forgot to take it, things like that. I just wanted something more permanent." I fold my hands and swing my feet.

"And you've been with the Mirena IUD ever since then? And that's been working well for you?" She scribbles something down fast with her pen and looks at me again. I nod my head. "And that's what you're looking to get today? You want to get back on the Mirena?" I nod again. "And it fell out this time around? Is this the first time you've ever experienced any complications with the IUD?"

"Yeah. It's never fallen out before now."

"Did it fall out after strenuous sexual activity? Do you recall feeling any pain when it fell out?" She motions for me to lay back and I do. She brings the little things for my feet over and I stick my feet in them. "And when exactly did it fall out?"

"Um… it fell out last Monday and I noticed it when I went to the bathroom. I did have sex with my boyfriend the Sunday night before that…and it didn't hurt when it fell out, it just felt weird."

"Right." She goes over to the sink to wash her hands. "A lot of my patients that report the IUD falling out notice that it'll fall out after hard sexual activity…it's not that uncommon, especially with older devices. The worst thing is that some of them don't realize it's fallen out and then they get pregnant. But you seemed to have noticed pretty quickly and that's good." She puts on a pair of gloves. "Any chance that you could be pregnant right now?"

"No." I shake my head.

"When was your last menstrual cycle?" She opens up a drawer with one of her ungloved hands and grabs the little package that the IUD comes in. "Rough estimate, doesn't have to be exact dates."

"I actually got my period on that Monday. So last Monday."

"And your periods are normal? How long do they last?"

"Yeah they're normal… they come every month. And they only last like… two days, sometimes three or something like that. But they always have. My old doctor said that it was normal." I bite my lip because she literally just went up there with no warning. I've had this thing put in me like three different times because it has to be replaced every five years and it never hurts but still, she could've warned me. She takes the little wand thing out when she's done putting it in. "All done?"

"Yep, you're all set." She disposes of everything and takes her gloves off. "Let's schedule your yearly exam and then you can be on your way."

**X X X **

**Text Message**

**Monday, August 9, 2014**

**9:22 p.m.**

**Stephy!: **He there yet?

**Me: **nope :/ i'm gonna wait until ten. maybe he had a surgery that ran late.

**Stephy!: **He's an hour and a half late Jo. You sure you don't want me to come get you? Me and Shane didn't leave to get Heather and Leah yet. You just wanna come with us?

**Me: **he wouldn't just stand me up though. i think he's coming, i just want to wait a little bit longer.

**Stephy!: **Okay. But if he's not there by the time me and Shane get back with Heather and Leah, I'm coming to grab you. You're not going to just sit there while he stands you up. That's effed up.

**Me: **okay. i'll text you when he gets here if you're not back by then. love you.

**Stephy!: **love u too Jo

I sigh and take another sip of the watered down Dr. Pepper I ordered when I first got here. At first I thought I was just early and I couldn't get mad at him if I was early and he wasn't there yet. I came at 7:20 because I didn't want to be late but I was early and he wasn't there. Then 7:45 came and he wasn't there. Then 8:00 came… then 8:30… and I think he's standing me up but I don't think Alex would do that…would he? _Of course he would, idiot. He doesn't even like you. Of course he'd stand you up…what makes you think he wouldn't?" _I've been here waiting for an hour and a half and I haven't heard anything from him. He hasn't texted or called. Maybe I should just let Stephanie take me home. She dropped me off so and she didn't go out with Heather and Leah and Shane yet. She could just come get me… because Alex stood me up.

**Text Message**

**Monday, August 9, 2014**

**9:30 p.m.**

**Me: **okay, you can come get me. i'm tired of waiting :(

**9:34 p.m.**

**Stephy!: **I'll be there in a little bit. I'm sorry he hurt your feelings babygirl :( but you got me still

**Me: **thanks.

As soon as I send that text message to Steph and put my phone down, it starts buzzing from ringing. _No fucking way. _I snatch it up off the table and slide my finger across the screen to answer it. "You better have a good ass excuse because I've been sitting here for HOURS…" The other end of the phone is dead silent. "Alex!" Silence. "Alex!" Still silent. _Oh my god, is he okay? Oh my god! _"Alex? Alex, are you there?" I plug my other ear to drown out any noise from the bar and listen hard. I hear him sniff at the other end like he's crying. "…Alex, you okay? Seriously, are you okay?" He's definitely crying because I just heard him sniff again. "Alex, _talk _to me. Talk to me…I'm here. What's the matter with you?"

He clears his throat but it doesn't do much for his voice. I can still tell he's crying. "Can you just come over?"

"Of course… I'll be right there." I hang up the phone and go back to my texts with Steph.

**Text Message**

**Monday, August 9, 2014**

**9:49 p.m.**

**Me: **come get me and take me to alex's. hurry please steph.

My heart is literally in my throat. I really hope he's okay.


	28. Better?

**A/N: M **rated content in this chapter.

* * *

><p>My tongue circles around the rim of my beer bottle as I cross my legs up on the coffee table. As I've been doing for the last twenty minutes straight, I stare at the wall in front of me where the TV is mounted onto. The paint is chipped in a circular shape and glass is shattered down around the floor. I turn my bottle up to my lips and take a sip. I'm on my third beer and I'm still not feeling buzzed off it. Or maybe I am, I'm just too numb to notice. I'm comfortably numb right now; I can't feel anything and it's a good thing. I don't want to feel anything. I'd rather feel nothing at all. I tilt my head all the way back and guzzle the last little bit of beer. I toss the glass bottle on the floor knowing that it won't shatter if it hits the carpet but not caring if it does. I rub my eyes hard and just sit in silence, thinking.<p>

Funny how my life just got turned upside down and the people I normally want to talk to when I'm a situation like this one haven't even crossed my mind. I didn't call on Mere, I didn't even bother to call on Cristina either. Jo was the first person I wanted to talk to. It was out of instinct, too. It's not like I thought about calling Mere and Cristina and I decided against it; I just didn't even think to call them until after I thought about calling Jo. I don't know what I'm going to do when she gets over here but I hope that even with these beers in my system, I'll be able to restrain myself. I can't decide if I hate her or if I'm pleasantly content with what just happened. I'm confused because something inside of me is telling me that I should hate Jo because she's the root of everything that just happened, but there's another part of me that's saying that I need her.

I'm not myself right now and I think I might've made a mistake by telling Jo to come over. I feel like I might not be able to control myself when I see her. I'm angry with her, I want to hate her, I want so bad to tell her to get the hell out of my life. She's the reason all of this just happened. She's the reason I'm sitting here opening up my fourth bottle of beer and staring at the wall while replaying every single scene of what just happened over and over again in my head. It happened all because of Jo… all because I got involved with an intern. An intern that I never planned to even like, but she made me fall for her. All because of me not being able to control myself around an intern. I turn my fourth beer up to my lips and take a long sip as I think about the words that came out of her mouth and the words that rolled off my tongue.

"_I'm running down to Joe's for a little while." I lean down and brush her hair back, planting a kiss on her forehead just to show her that I love her. "Unless you need me to stay home with you then I will." She looks so much better today than she did a couple days ago. The color in her face was drained, she looked really weak and her eyes had purplish bags underneath of them. Today, she's back to normal color, she looks healthier and she slept for a few hours today so she doesn't look tired. She looks great which in turn, makes me feel great. "You need me to stay home?" She's mouthing something to herself while she's knitting something with fluffy blue yarn. I think she's counting so she knows how many stitches wide to make it. "Iz? You hear me?" She nods, still counting. "Alright…I'm running down to Joe's with Jo for a little while to have a drink…I'll be back in a minute."_

"_With who?" She finally stops the counting thing, puts her knitting needles down and looks at me. "Are you talking about the little brunette? The intern?"_

"_Jo? Yeah… we're just grabbing a drink and catching up…" I sit down on the edge of the bed and put my hand on her kneecap. "If you need me to stay home with you, I will. You need me to stay here?" I ask her for the second time. I really don't want to cancel with Jo. I want to see her tonight and I want to hang out with her but if Iz needs me then I have to prioritize and I'll stay home with Izzie. I don't want to…but I will. _

"_You're always with her…what about Meredith and Cristina? Or what about Jackson? Why are you always with her?"_

"_She's my friend too and I don't get to hang out with her as much as I get to hang out with everybody else." I run my hands through my hair because I know that this conversation has the potential to escalate and if it does escalate, it'll probably be hard for me as a man to hide the blatant feelings I have for Jo. "I see everybody else at work but she's an intern so I don't see her as much…so we just have to hang out outside of work to remain friends, you know?" She doesn't look like she's gonna take that for an answer. I can tell when Iz is trying to remain calm and she definitely is trying hard this time. "Plus, Jo's going through some shit right now and I wanna be there for her…"_

"_But why are you ALWAYS with her? You're always with her… and I can't even try to ignore it anymore Alex because it's so blatantly obvious that she's important to you."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_I mean she's taking you away from me!"_

"_No she's not, Iz… Jo's my friend. What are you talking about?"_

I unconsciously burp under my breath and shudder as the tears that trickle down my cheeks send chills up my spine. I can't really tell you why I'm crying. I don't know if it's because I'm genuinely upset or if it's because I'm pissed that it happened this way. Either way it goes, I'm crying and I'm not a huge crier. I just don't know if I'm going to be okay with never seeing her again. I feel like I just lost my best friend. And strangely, this somehow makes me feel at ease. I don't understand why I'm crying. I don't understand why I'm so upset. So since I'm unsure of why I'm so messed up, I turn the bottle up to my lips again and take another long sip.

"_You love her, Alex… you love her." She's whipping around the room like a hurricane shoving things inside of bags and suitcases. "And don't even be an asshole about it and try to tell me that you don't because you do! I've been with you for four years Alex! FOUR YEARS."_

"_What are you doing?!" I wrap my hands around her clothes and try to pull them off her to stop her from packing. She's packed many times on me before. Every time we argue and she goes to Chehalis, she packs. I've helped her pack before. But this time is different… This time, she's shoving everything into bags. All of her personals, all of her clothes, every single last drop of her medicines, lotions, deodorants, shower gels, shampoos, conditioners…she's throwing it all into bags. "Iz, chill out. What are you doing?"_

"_I'm not gonna be the one to hold you back." She doesn't even bother folding her clothes up, she just takes them off the hangers and shoves them into the suitcase. "Why would I stick around to hold you back when you're clearly in love with someone else?"_

"_But I'm not! Iz, I love YOU. I love you Iz… what are you doing?"_

"…_Alex, you don't have to act anymore." She stops packing for a second to give her attention to me. "You don't have to pretend, you don't have to try to convince me. You don't have to act like you want me. I'm not gonna hold you back just because you feel like you have some kind of obligation to be with me because I'm sick." She holds her left hand inside her right hand and starts twisting her ring on her ring finger. "You and I both know that this isn't working. And we keep trying to force it and force it and I'm scared. I'm scared that if this cancer doesn't kill me, this relationship is gonna kill me. I don't want to wake up ten years for now realizing that I've made a horrible mistake. And I need you to be happy. I need you to be so happy and I can see that you're not." She walks over to where I'm standing and holds the engagement ring out to me. "But I can see when you are. And you're happy when you talk about her, Alex. You're happy when you talk about her; when you see her, you smile. I've been watching you with her and I can see it. I can see that you love her. I just don't know why you can't see it…"_

"_Is this because I'm going out with her? Iz… no." I softly shove her hand away from me with the ring still in it. "I'm not throwing this away. I'm not gonna be responsible for breaking you. I'm not gonna be the one that broke off his engagement with his fiancée just because we're going through something right now. No, Iz… I made a promise to you. I'm not gonna be the one that breaks this off…"_

"_You're right. You're not gonna be the one that breaks this off because I'm the one that's ending this." She tries to hand the ring to me again. "I don't want this anymore Alex. This is a mistake. We're both making a mistake here. I'm making a mistake by…" She closes her eyes. "I'm making a mistake by forcing this on you when I'm not even sure if I really love you." I can't believe she just said that… "I don't know if I love you enough to marry you. I can't tell if I'm in love with you or in love with the idea of getting married…either way it goes, this is a mistake for me. And it's a mistake for you too. You don't want this. I know you and I know you don't want this Alex."_

"_Iz, you can't leave. You can't leave. I need you to stay with me." I feel like someone shot a cannon clean through the middle of my stomach. I'm so empty. I feel so empty that I have to put my hand underneath my sweatshirt to feel if there's a literal hole in my stomach. There's not, but I feel like there should be. "I'll do better. If you stay, I'll do better."_

"_I can't stay and continue to make this mistake. And you don't need to keep making this mistake either. You love her Alex…and you need to realize that before you're too late."_

The sound of the doorbell makes me jump, pulling me out of my deep and consuming thoughts of everything that just happened to me. Crazy how your life can change in such an instant, isn't it? I peel myself up off the couch after spending an hour drowning myself in booze-soaked sorrows and self-pity. It really is crazy how soon your life can change. Just an hour ago I thought I was gonna go out and have a beer with my friend/lover or whatever Jo is to me. I was gonna go have fun with her for a couple of hours and come home to Iz and go to sleep after the end of a good day. But somewhere along the lines, the one beer I was supposed to have with Jo turned into four by myself and I think I'm single and I'm pretty sure my engagement is over. I brush my fingers through my hair in an attempt to fix myself before I unlatch the lock on my front door and open it up. I hold it open for her and she walks right inside.

"…Are you okay?" She asks me in a voice so faint that it's barely not a whisper. She hangs around the door like she's unsure if she should come all the way inside because she knows that Izzie is supposed to be here. She buries her hands inside of the front pocket of her hoodie and looks at me with concern expressed all over her usually flawless face. She doesn't look like she put much effort into her appearance and I kind of like that. I like how she feels comfortable enough to dress like this around me. She has on a deep crimson red hoodie with HARVARD written across it in white and black lettering and a pair of jeans that are so tight against her skin that I wonder how it's possible for her to even move. I shrug my shoulders and walk back to the living room, collapsing back down into the spot on the couch I've been sitting in for the last hour since Izzie left.

Jo follows me to the living room and looks around before she decides that it's safe to come all the way inside. She catches the drift that I don't want to talk and tiptoes around the empty beer bottles to sit down on the couch at the opposite end from me. "Alex?" She whispers my name. "How many beers did you have?" She's eyeballing all the empty bottles on the floor. "Are you gonna talk to me?" It's like she's afraid to talk to me in anything above a slighted whisper. She won't raise her voice. Is she scared because I've been drinking? She's scared or unsure about something, that's for sure. "…Alex?" She's looking at me but I can't find it within myself to look at her. Her tiny little clammy hand rests on my arm. "Are you okay?"

I don't know why but as soon as she asks me that, everything I've been holding back inside my head just overwhelms me. It's like the floodgates open and more tears just come out of my eyes. I really hope she doesn't tell anyone about this. I didn't even mean to break down like this in front of her but I do and I guess I couldn't think of a better person to cry in front of…except maybe Mere but Jo's good too. "Wait… wait, what happened?" When she sees me crying is when her voice finally rises above a whisper. She sounds like she's panicking. "Alex, what's the matter?" She scoots over so that she's sitting next to me. I sniff and wipe my eyes and shake my head. I thought I wanted to talk to her about it but I really don't want to. On the plus side, I'm not mad at her like I thought I might've been. I'm really glad she's here. I just don't want to talk to her. But she's forceful and she puts her little arms around my shoulders and forces me to lie on her shoulder. Whatever…I guess it feels good to have her hugging me.

I stop resisting her embrace and willingly lay down on her shoulder. She uses her fingernails to scratch through my hair when she strokes it. "You can talk to me. Just tell me what happened…" I'm still not ready to talk about it because I know that if I start to talk about it right exactly now, I'm gonna cry some more and I really don't want to go off on another crying fit again. She stops rubbing my head and grabs onto my arms while she lies down flat against the couch, pulling me on top of her. I think it's mighty weird how she's not even a third of my size and she's holding me like I'm a toddler…and I really like it. I don't want to hurt her so I adjust my body weight so that I'm lying with my weight evenly distributed on her body. I'm lying on her chest with my arms wrapped around her waist while she's scratching through my hair again. Funny how I have so much on my mind that I should be worried about but all I can think about is how much I like the fact that she always smells so incredibly good. She smells like perfume and shampoo and I like it because that's just her scent. She smells like Jo.

She puts her head down and kisses the crown of my head before resting her chin atop of it. I like how she just gets that I don't want to talk about it. She gets it and she just leaves me alone because she gets it. Being careful not to disturb me like I'm a sleeping baby on her, she slyly grabs her phone from her pants pocket and holds it behind my back so she can do whatever she wants to do on it while she holds me. I'm starting to think that maybe Iz was right. Maybe I do love Jo. Maybe subconsciously in my mind, I love her… and I just can't tell yet. If Iz could tell that I love Jo before I could even tell that I love her, is it really that obvious? When I start to calm down some more, she grazes her fingernails through my hair again. That feels so good.

"She left me." I mumble. I feel her chest jolt upwards from a gasp she just uttered. "Like it was so simple and so easy. She made it so easy…" My eyes sting bad with tears that are welling up. "She's frickin' gone. She's gone." I blink and the tears fall out. "She shoved all her shit in bags and gave me the ring back and she left. Just like that." This is probably her shining moment, you know? She's probably internally so happy that Iz is out of the equation and I don't know, maybe I'll be happy about it too someday but right now…I'm heartbroken. "…I know you're probably happy, but—"

"Why would I be happy about that?" She sounds really insulted. "Why would I be happy that you're upset? I'm not happy about that…" She rubs my hair some more and puts her lips to my head again. "I'm sorry. I'm not happy, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry that you're hurting… I'm sorry." _There's no way… She's really that damn perfect? Really? She's so perfect that she's not happy that I'm single? She's really sorry about it? Damn. Yeah, I really don't deserve this woman. She's too good for me. _She's rubbing my back as well as my hair now too. "Did she tell you why? Is she gonna be back?"

"She's gone! No she's not coming back! SHE'S GONE, JO. GONE." _Stop yelling at her. She didn't know. Don't be an asshole to her too before you lose her. _"She said something about the engagement being a mistake… how our whole lives together is just one big mistake. And how she felt like I was staying with her only because she's sick. She said it's a mistake." I'll leave out the part where she said I love Jo. I'll leave that out. I just don't want to give Jo any false hope because at this point, I still don't see what Izzie meant when she said that she could see that Jo loves me even though I can't see it. I don't feel like I love Jo. Sure, she makes me happy when I'm around her and I care deeply about her and I always, always, ALWAYS want to be around her… does that constitute as love? I pick my head up and look at her. The look on her face says it all. She really does feel bad for me. She really isn't happy or anything like that. She looks at me like she wants to do nothing but comfort me. "She's not coming back…"

"I'm sorry." She takes her hand from the back of my head to my jawline and rubs the outline of my chin with her thumb. "Maybe it's for the better though." She wipes away my tears then goes back to stroking my face. "Maybe it happened for a reason and maybe she was right. Maybe if she saw that it wasn't right then it really wasn't right. Maybe it wasn't meant to be…" Her voice is soft, convincing almost. "It's gonna be okay… it's gonna be okay."

Maybe my judgment is clouded right now. Maybe I'm drunk off my ass from all the beers I drowned myself in. Hell, maybe I'm actually thinking with my heart instead of my brain. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I have to. So I lean down and put my lips to hers. I can't help it, I feel like I need to. Something inside my body propelled me and told me to do it so I did. And it feels so good to it. I can't thank her for putting me back together. I'm still broken but I swear I wouldn't have made it through this night if she didn't come over. I part my lips and force her lips open with my own lips so I can kiss her the way she needs to be kissed. Her tongue meets with mine and they swirl around together like they're in a battle. She's such a better person than I am. I swear I don't deserve her.

I don't want to, but she pulls away from the kiss. "…Alex, don't." She licks her lips to complete the kiss and rubs them together. "Don't do this to me… don't do this to yourself. You're not thinking and you're all messed up right now. Don't do this. Not right now, okay?" _I'm thinking clear. I'm thinking clearer right now than I've thought all night I believe. And I know that I want to kiss you. _

"Shut up." I mutter and kiss her again. "Shut up Jo…" I stop kissing her lips and move to her jawline. "Shut up." I slide my hands up to her head and tangle my fingers through her silky hair. She's wearing a hoodie that's pretty concealing towards her body, so I force her head to the side so I can kiss whatever skin that's exposed on her neck. I close my lips around the skin just below her chin line and suck on her neck. I guess she's right about me being emotionally unstable right now. But I do know that I really do care about her and I really do want her and I need her to know that she's different. It means something to me that she's willing to let me cry to her over something like this. She's not like any other girl. And I know just the way to prove that to her, if she'd let me.

"Don't do this… if you don't want to…" Her eyes are closed and she's speaking to me with a thick, pleasure-filled voice. The neck kisses really get her going; I noticed that the last time we had sex too. "It's…" Her voice trails off because I just moved to another part of her neck. "Not cool to fuck with my head like this…"

"I want to." I mumble, face deep in her neck. I take my hands out of her hair and move them down to her waist while I still keep my mouth occupied with her neck. "So shut up…" She whispers an "okay" and I unsnap the button on her jeans. She graciously lifts her hips up so I can pull them down. They're pretty tight so I have a hard time getting them off but she helps me out by lifting her legs and pulling with me. While I throw her pants out of my way, she pulls her hoodie off and tosses it as well so I take my shirt off to match her. Lying between her legs, I go back to her mouth and give her a hard kiss to let her know that I'm not trying to mess with her head this time. I'm doing this because I have nothing to regret by doing this anymore. Her hands immediately go up and curl themselves in my hair while I kiss all over her mouth and neck. _I remember a lot of things she says to me. When we're having our conversations? I remember a lot of the things she mentions during them. I just like learning about her. _And because I remember a lot of the things she mentions to me, I know what her favorite thing is and I know how she feels about it. But I'm serious enough to do it so what the hell?

Something tells me that she's not gonna let me do this without having something to say or trying to stop me, so I hold myself up hovering over her body. She takes her hands away from my head like I hoped she would've and I put my hands inside hers so she can't stop me. I hold her hands down while I kiss from her neck down to her chest. I stop and kiss the parts of her boobs that are hanging out of the top of her bra then I kiss the crevice in the middle of them. I stop at her stomach and kiss her sides before I move and kiss around her belly button. I think she gets what I'm about to do because she shakes her hands out of mine and puts them over her face. I keep going with the kissing until I reach the rim of her underwear. I hook my arms around her thighs and part them. I move the kissing to the insides of her thighs. I'm not surprised, but she really smells clean. She definitely took a shower because the smell of soap is lingering on her soft skin. Just like the rest of the skin on her body, she has a brown beauty mark on the inside of her thigh.

I kiss her through her underwear which makes her sigh like she's already enjoying herself. I slip my thumbs through the rim of her underwear and slide them off while she elevates her hips again to help me. I take them off and put them on the floor right along with her jeans. I look up at her before I rest my forehead on her lower stomach. Her eyes are closed and her lips are pursed together like she's gonna hold back noises. Just to ease her into it, I slide my tongue along the outside at first. Her breathing stutters. It doesn't seem like she's gonna try to stop me or anything so I use the flat head of my tongue and lick around to make sure I get every inch of her. Her hand is on my head down and I can't tell whether she's pulling my hair, holding my head still or both.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I really didn't plan on doing this tonight. I swear I didn't plan on this. And especially when I came in here and saw how upset he was? I didn't plan on doing this tonight. But I don't know, he kind of talked me into it. Yeah, by telling me to "shut up", he talked me into it. I can't help but feel like he's only doing this because he's really upset about the fact that she left him. I think he just needs some reassurance right now and his mind is all messed up and he's just doing this because he's in such a fucked up place. Believe me, I know what it's like to do things on impulse because your mind isn't right. I guess at this point I'm just hoping he doesn't regret it. He's… single, I think. So I don't know why he might but I'm just saying that he might because he IS so messed up right now. He really thought I'd be happy about it and I guess somewhere deep down inside I am kind of happy but I'm really not as giddy as he thought I'd be. Why would I be happy that she hurt him? She really hurt him. He was crying so hard that his tears seeped through my hoodie on me. She hurt him, why would I be happy about that? The only thing I'm happy about at the moment is that I can have sex with him tonight without feeling like a whore. I still feel kind of bad—like I'm his rebound or something but I'd rather be a rebound than I whore.

"Uhhh…" An unconscious moan slips though my teeth. Do I mean something to him? He's doing this to me…and he said he doesn't do this to just anyone. I mean a little bit of something to him, don't I? For him to do this to me, I must…right? "Ohhh… shit…" I push his head deeper into me while his tongue is inside of me. He's just as good with his mouth as he is with his other parts. I grab onto his hair and my back arches because he's just so damn good at this. "Mmmmm…." He wiggles his tongue while he pulls it out of me. _Oh god no, he can't… _But he does. Yeah, he does. He cups his mouth around my clit and sucks on it. _I can't do this… I really can't do this anymore he's gonna make me… _"UHHHH!" I think that's the loudest I've ever moaned for him which is a bad thing for me. I'm gonna be so embarrassed if I do it. _Okay no, this isn't happening… _I push his head away from me so he can stop. I don't want to and he's gonna make me. _Stop…stop… _He has a death grip on my legs though. He won't let me pull away and he won't let me push him away. I'm at that point where I can't take it anymore.

I try so hard to push him away again to get him to stop sucking on THAT PART of me but he WON'T. I don't care what else he does to me, he just has to get off that part. _Stop sucking on it… _I'm getting more and more resistant which means it's gonna come and once I get to a certain point, it's inevitable. This isn't how I wanted this to happen… I don't want to do it NOW… He wraps his arm around my waist so I can't do anywhere and I can't resist him. "Oh my god…" I whisper to myself. I grit my teeth together, moaning so loud that I probably sound like I'm being murdered. The louder I moan, the closer I get to doing it and… dammit. "…fuck…" I mumble and take my hands off his head to cover my face. _I'm sorry… I need a towel… damn I wish I didn't do that._

He stops whenever I do it and kisses from my core up to my neck, giggling like a fucking two year old. "You weren't lying…" He kisses me on my neck. "That was hot."

"…Don't ever do that to me again." I'm breathing heavy because even though I did my special little trick thing, I did just orgasm and it takes me a while to recover after that. "I'm so serious. If I'm pushing your head away, that means stop…"

"Why would I stop? That's the only thing that cheered me up tonight." He nestles his head in the crook of my neck while he's lying between my legs on the soaking wet couch cushions. "Plus, I had to see it to believe it." I roll my eyes at that. "It was pretty hot…"

"I hate you." I playfully slap the back of his head. "…Why do you think you're getting away that easy though?" I sit up and push him back so that we switch positions and I'm on top.

"You don't have to do it back Jo… that's not why I did it…"

"Who said anything about giving you head?" I kiss his neck and straddle him. "I know other ways…"

**X X X **

**Text Message**

**Tuesday, August 10, 2014**

**12:02 a.m.**

**Me: **i'm staying over alex's tonight. you don't have to wait up for me.

**12:05 a.m.**

**Stephy!: **Okayy. I'll see you at work tomorrow. Use protection. Goodnight xoxo

**Me: **lol. see you xo

I could really get used to this. Not the whole coming over and comforting him while he's crying, but the whole guilt-free sex thing. I could get used to that. This time was just as amazing as it was the last time we did it, but something about this time felt different. He took his time with me which kind of made me feel special. It wasn't as rough and hardcore as it was the last time. We still had dirty sex of course. He still put me in exotic, wild positions, yeah. But everything about this time was slower and not rushed. He kissed me an awful lot and he was so slow and gentle. I kind of liked this time better than last time. He went down on me so I think that definitely took the sex to a different level between us, even though I didn't go down on him. I would've, though. He didn't want me to. I tried but he wouldn't let me. He said he wants me to do it on my own. He doesn't want me to do it just because he did it to me which I thought was sweet but totally missing my point. I would've done it anyway.

He wouldn't let me live down the squirting though. He was bound and determined to make me do it again which I thought was ridiculous. He thinks that it was hot but I think it was embarrassing. I would've rather have done that in a bed because now I feel guilty about getting the couch cushions wet from doing it but he doesn't seem to mind. He was all giggly and happy about the fact that he made me do it and I don't get the reason why. It was just squirting, you know? Why is that such a big deal for guys? I think it's kind of messy but that's just me. But it made Alex feel better so I guess it was worth it. I'm not totally convinced that he feels all the way better but whatever. I'm not expecting him to feel better right away…his fiancée just left him after all.

I still kind of feel like a cheap whore though. I don't know. I just feel like it only happened because he was so messed up about her leaving him. It was good sex and all but still… I wish he would've done it sober. I could tell he was drunk and I'm kind of nervous that he won't remember any of it. He told me I could sleep over but what if he doesn't remember telling me I could in the morning? I would've much rather have had sex with him while he was sober and I was sober, that way I know it wasn't just the emotions and the beer that wanted to have sex with me. Am I being picky or ungrateful?

I roll over on my side and close my eyes to try and fall asleep. I have work tomorrow morning and if I don't sleep soon, I'll be intolerable tomorrow. Alex has been sleep for a while now and I'm just now going. He fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed. He let me take a shower first and he gave me a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt to sleep in. He got in the shower after me and fell asleep right after he got dressed. I think the beer got the best of him because he didn't even tell me goodnight, nor did he even realize I was next to him. I'm just scared he won't remember tonight tomorrow morning. Tonight was amazing… I'll be so upset if he doesn't remember it.

I just have so many questions I want to ask him. I want to know if this means me and him could possibly be together now? Does this mean that we don't have to sneak? Does he still want to be my friend? Does he want to be more than my friend? Was that lovemaking or was it just…sex? He would answer those questions for me if he wasn't drunken, I know that for sure. I don't know, I guess I might've taken advantage of him… _Shut up and go to sleep. _I sit up. I have to go pee before I go to sleep for the night. I get out of the bed quietly so I don't wake him and pad down the hall to the bathroom. I also don't feel right sleeping in the same bed he used to share with his fiancée. Is she really gone? Is she coming back? Are they really done? Dammit Alex, why do you have to be drunk? I have questions!

I pull down the boxers I'm wearing and sit down on the toilet to pee. I close my eyes and rest my chin in my hands while I go because even though my head is reeling, I am very sleepy. When I'm done, I reach over and grab some toilet paper. I put my hand between my legs to wipe myself and when I move my hand to wipe properly, I feel something pull and fall. _What the fuck? _I drop the toilet paper into the toilet bowl and stand up to look behind myself. Floating in the toilet along with my toilet paper is the little IUD birth control thing that I got put in only a few hours earlier. _Why the fuck does this thing keep falling out?! _I roll my eyes, too tired to be properly annoyed with the fact that it fell out AGAIN and flush the toilet behind myself. I think the Family Planning clinic takes walk-ins. I'll go see about getting that thing implanted in my arm tomorrow during my lunch because CLEARLY this IUD won't stay the fuck in. I'll run down to CVS Pharmacy and grab a dose of The Morning After Pill too, just to be safe. I just don't get it… why won't it stay? Is he going too deep when we have sex? Is he knocking it loose? Whatever, I'm tired and I'm going to bed.


	29. It's Okay

If I lay here for another twenty minutes, that won't make me late…will it? Just for twenty minutes and I swear I'll get up. I swear. My shift starts at 7:00 and the last time I looked at the clock, it was 5:30. If I lay here until 5:50 or 6:00 at the latest…I won't be late. I just need to find a way to get out of here without waking him up, which is nearly an impossible task. I wish I had followed my instinct and left last night around 1:30 but Steph was asleep and I wouldn't have even asked her to get out of bed to come get me at that hour, even though I know she would've if I had asked. I slept well last night aside from the fact that I couldn't move. I'm usually a big mover in my sleep. I usually move around a whole lot while I'm asleep but I couldn't last night and that was the only bad part about my sleep last night.

As soon as I started to get comfortable enough to fall asleep for good around 12:30 or so last night, I heard him sniffing and when I reached over to check him, he was crying. He had been sleep for a while by that point so I just guessed that he was having a bad dream so I tried to wake him up but that made it worse. He mumbled something along the lines of "leave me alone" and "don't leave me, Iz." I won't lie…that kind of hurt my feelings when I realized that his bad dream was about her. But I didn't take it personally and I wiped his tears and finally, he woke up. I'm too much of a coward to confront him about it and last night was no exception. I was too cowardly to tell him that he had been crying in his sleep about her leaving him so I just didn't tell him. He seemed really happy to know I was there when he woke up so if it made him feel better, I let him lay on my chest again. And he fell back asleep.

He hasn't woken up since then and he's been asleep on my chest all night so I couldn't move and that's the only reason I haven't gotten up and gone home yet. He's lying next to me with his arms around my waist and his head on my chest. He hasn't moved in hours and neither have I, even though I've had to pee for at least an hour. I just don't want to wake him up. I just don't know what I'm even doing here. At first I was here because he called me over and asked me to come after he stood me up for our date last night. Now, I'm not even sure why I'm still here. I don't even know if he still wants me here. I don't know if he'll even remember asking me to come here, he was so drunk off his ass last night. Well, worst case scenario is that he wakes up in my arms, gets mad and kicks me out. I'll be upset but I can't say it wouldn't have been expected.

I rest my cheek against his soft hair and inhale the scent of him. I figure he's probably gonna kick me out in a few moments when he wakes me up and who knows if I'll ever be able to do this again so I might as well enjoy it while I can. If Izzie being gone really means that he's single, I could get used to this. He could get used to it to if he'd give it a chance, I know he could. I could make him happy if he'd let me. And I wouldn't leave him. He'd never wake up in the middle of the night upset over the fact that I left him because I wouldn't ever abandon him. He could lay like this on me all night every single night for the rest of his life if he wanted to. And I'd still be here in the morning. I could make him so happy if only he'd let me.

I knot my fingers through his hair, untangling all his messy little waves while I just relax, feeling the motion of his breathing on me. It's still puzzling to me that she left him. I don't think she knows what a perfect man she had…if she did know then she wouldn't have given him up so easily. He's so perfect. Everything about him is just handcrafted, pure perfection. There's me who would kill for the opportunity to be with him for at least an hour uninterrupted. Then there's her. She had him and willingly gave him up. I'd never let him go if I had him. Ever. He'd just be stuck with me and while I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's just that. He'd be stuck with me because I'd never go anywhere if I had him.

With my hands still tangled in his hair, he lifts his head up a little bit before slamming it back down on my chest. _Let me get ready to be kicked out. _I swallow a lump in my throat and emotionally prepare myself for the fact that he's probably gonna tell me that I need to leave now. He groans as he starts to move around to properly wake himself up and I take my hands away from his body. He holds himself up on his elbows, yawns and looks down at me with tired, groggy eyes. I fold my hands and look away from him. He yawns again, clears his throat and licks his lips. "…How long you been up?" His voice is rugged and phlegmy, like he needs to clear it again.

"A while." I whisper. I prop myself up on my elbows and pull the covers off me because now that he's awake, I can leave before he kicks me out. I slide my legs from underneath the blankets and put my feet down on the carpet. I hear the bed creak and feel his hands grab at my waist. "Stop, okay? I'm leaving…" I mumble and stand up but his hands squeeze my hips and pull me back. "For real, quit."

"Why are you leaving me?" He slips his arm around my waist and drags me back so I fall down against the bed. "I don't want you to go yet." When he gets me to the point that I'm lying down on the bed, he puts his head back against my chest and tilts his face up so that his lips are kissing the underside of my chin. "We're going to the same place… you can stay for a little bit longer." He pushes his lips to my neck. "I'll ride you to work."

"You will?" I put my chin against the top of his head while he keeps his lips pressed to my neck.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" One of his hands is on my shoulder and the other one is grazing my kneecap with his fingertips. "You rode me for an hour last night, the least I can do is give you a ten minute ride to work." He winks at me and I feel my cheeks redden as I blush from embarrassment so hard that my face actually gets hot. _Did he really just say that? He turns everything into something sexual. _I don't know whether to be embarrassed or happy that he actually remembers that we had sex last night. Okay so he remembers that we had sex but that doesn't mean that he remembers everything we did last night, does it?

"Why do you always have to make something sexual?" I kiss his forehead and close my eyes, happy that he doesn't seem like he's mad at me. He's not drunk so he's sober and he's aware of what he's doing. Does this mean that he wants me? His fingertips trail up from my kneecap all the way to my upper thigh. "We were talking about a car… and you had to turn that into something dirty, of course." Since the boxers he gave me to wear last night are so big, he's able to just slide his hand through the leg hole. I sit up in hopes that I'll force his hand from inside my pants but it doesn't work and I guess I don't really mind. I don't care that he's touching me of course. But this can't escalate into anything more than touching and stuff because we have to be at work too soon. "We're gonna be late if you don't move." I lean forward and kiss his lips. "And I'm still an intern. I can't afford to be late yet."

"We're not gonna be late if you just let me have my way for a couple minutes." He takes his hand out of my pants and kisses me on my cheek. "I'll see you later on tonight so I guess I can let you go now though."

"…You want me to stay over again?" Does this mean we're in a relationship now? Okay, I'm excited sure. But isn't this happening a little fast? He just got broken up with last night. He's not even giving it a full day is he? Or maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions with this. Maybe that's not what he's saying at all. I don't know. I have so many questions and I'm so scared to even ask him because I just don't want him to reject me. This is all so fresh and new for me and I really don't want to mess this up for myself. "…Alex, I know…" I look down and clear my throat. I'm so nervous. "If you…" How do I phrase this? I grab a lock of my hair and twist it around my finger. "If you still need a minute, I understand. You don't have to rush this…"

"Rush what?"

"…Nothing." I shake my head and stretch my arms out to make it seem like I really did just let the entire situation go, even though I didn't. I think I should wait to ask him all of my questions until his loss isn't as fresh as it is right now. There's no way in hell that he's over losing his fiancée this quickly and I just feel like he's trying to rush things between us just to get over her, which isn't really fair to either one of us. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that it seems like I have him all to myself now, but I think it's time that I start to take care of myself. And that starts with not jumping to conclusions to get my heart broken. No conclusions, I'll just wait. Maybe I'm ready too far into this. "We should get ready to go to work." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "Are you alright to go?"

"I'm fine Jo… you can stop worrying about me now." He gets up hastily and starts to look around the room for clothes to put on. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine? You really know how to bust my balls, you know." I just sit there in his bed, unable to say anything back to him. "You don't appreciate anything. Never mind everything that happened last night." He slams his dresser door shut after he yanks a pair of pants out of it. "You bitch and complain at me about the sex being too hard the first time so I slow it down for you last night and you still bitch at me." I'm trying really, really hard not to take offense to everything he's saying to me but I'm struggling. I know he doesn't mean any of it. I know he's just upset still and he's really guarded and he doesn't want me to know how upset he is. I know all of this. So I'm trying to understand that he's just talking out of his ass right now. "You think that just because I cried last night that I'm soft?! I only cried because I was drunk so you can shut the hell up now."

"…I know… I know." He cried hard to me last night because he's upset. It's okay to be upset… but not for Alex it isn't. He just doesn't like to be perceived as soft and I understand that. It's a guy thing. He just feels the need to clarify to me that he wasn't crying because he was soft. "I was just making sure you're okay…"

"Well don't. I can handle myself." He puts his pants on. "I told you over and over again that I'm FINE and you just won't drop it. Let it the fuck go." _But you're not okay… _"Then you have the balls to tell me I'm rushing stuff? You don't know shit Jo. You're real stupid, you know that?" I nod my head, agreeing with him. _He doesn't mean it. _"I'm not rushing shit. You need to figure out what you want instead of being so stupid. You know you want to jump for joy now that Izzie's gone but you're trying to act like you're not happy even though I know you are. You're trying to act like you don't enjoy being here with me by asking me over and over again if I'm okay." He's just ranting. "I'M FINE, OKAY? I'M NOT RUSHING ANYTHING. SHE'S GONE, I DON'T CARE. I THOUGHT I HAD YOU ON MY SIDE BUT IF YOU KEEP ACTING LIKE A CRAZY BITCH I DON'T WANT YOU EITHER."

"…Okay." I stand up and grab my pair of jeans that I came here in last night. _Should I say anything? _I really don't know how to speak Alex. But I do know how to speak Jo. And he always told me that he and I are really alike. And I know that when I act the way he's acting, that's when I need somebody to tell me it's okay the most. When I push someone away, that's when I need someone the most. Maybe he's like me in that sense. I don't know. I put my jeans back down on the floor and quietly walk over to him while his back is turned to me. "…I'm still here." I whisper to him, easing my arms around his waist. He turns around so that we're facing each other. I squeeze his waist tight. "I'm still here…" He's not even hugging me back but that's okay.

"Get off me Jo. Seriously." His body stiffens and he just stands there, solid and still. I squeeze him tighter. "No wonder Peckwell kept hitting you. You're annoying as fuck." _He doesn't mean it… and he needs me. _I rub his back and raise myself up on my tiptoes so I can hug him around his neck. "GET OFF!"

"It's okay, Alex." I put my hand on the back of his head and force him to put his head on my shoulder while I lead him back towards the bed. The both of us reach the bed at the same time and I pull him down with me while I sit. He seems to have calmed down because he just lets me force his head on my chest and my arms around him. "It's okay…" I rub his hair because that always seems to calm him down. I think he's crying because there's a wet spot on my t-shirt where his face is. "I'm still here. I'm always gonna be here…okay? I'm still here." He doesn't need to go to work today. He doesn't need to be around anyone.

"Get off me Jo. Go away…" His voice is thick with tears and he sounds like he's really breaking down. "This is your fault… I fucking hate you."

"I know… I know you do." I stroke his hair back and wipe his face and just let him go. "That's okay though. You're not getting rid of me that easy." I kiss his head and hold him just a little tighter. He's hurting really bad right now and he's trying to hurt me to cope with the hurt he's feeling but if I don't let him hurt me then I can be here for him. He's just like me. I want to hurt someone when I'm hurting too. "It's okay…" He's sweating from crying so hard, so I wipe away the perspiration on his forehead with my hand. He sniffs and finally stops resisting me. He puts his arms around me to reciprocate the hug I'm giving him and just lets me comfort him. "It's okay baby… I'm here." _Did I just call him "baby"? It slipped…but he is my baby. _"Here… lay back down." He's so much heavier than me, but I consider myself a strong girl and I find a way to scoot up towards the top of the bed with him in my arms. "I'm here, baby…" I kiss his forehead this time. "…Do you want me to stay home from work with you?"

"You have to go…you can take my car…and go…" He squeezes me so tight around my torso that I feel like my eyes are gonna pop out of my skull. "I don't want you to… but you gotta." His voice is muffled because his face is stuffed between my boobs while he's crying and he won't move it. But I can still understand some of what he's saying. "I'm probably gonna sleep all day…" He sniffs. "…Don't go anywhere, Jo… I need you."

"I'm not going anywhere, baby." I reach down and play with his hands so that part of me other than my chest is tangible to him. He has to know that I'm here. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to work but I'll be right back when I get off. I'll be right back. I'm not going anywhere." I squeeze his hand. "See? I'm right here." I brush his hair back away from his sweaty face. "I have to get ready for work though…" In all honesty, I don't want to leave him either. I'd give a kidney if it meant that I could stay here in bed holding him all day. But I'm an intern and I'm already skating on very thin ice at the hospital with me punching people in the face and stuff. "I want you to get some rest… I'll be right back, okay?" He doesn't say anything to me. I look down at him. He's asleep.

I sigh and very carefully lay him down on the pillow so I can get dressed and go to work for the day. I'm way in over my head here. I'm taking on more than I can juggle. I promised him that I'd be back later and I don't intend on breaking that promise. But I have so much I have to do. I'm an intern and my schedule is always crazy, I think I'm falling in love with someone that was just recently engaged, he's all messed up and he needs me, I'm all messed up and I need myself… I'm only one person. I can't take all of this at one time. But Alex really needs me. And as long as he needs me, my questions and my needs come second. I have to be here for him right now, even if he's treating me weird.

One minute he's all playful with me and he's happyish, and the next, he hates me. He's cussing at me, he swears that I deserved to be hit by Jason and he calls me stupid. I know he didn't mean anything he said to me. He's just lashing out right now and I just so happen to be the target. I know he doesn't mean it. He's all messed up because she left him. You know what? I'm starting to hate her. I was trying to be supportive and like her just because he seemed to have been really fond of her. But I can't be respectful anymore. I really hate that bitch. She hurt him…how could she? How could she just leave him like that? He's BROKEN… because she just up and left? What a fucking bitch. I'd really like to give her a piece of my mind. It seems to me that she needs to be reminded what an amazing, beautiful, kind, gentle… AMAZING husband she could have had. Bitch.

"I'll be back later." I whisper to him. I lean down and kiss him on his lips when I get out of the bed. "Sleep tight, baby."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So this chapter is pretty short, but that's because I started writing it really late and I don't have time to write it really long tonight because it's 12 a.m. where I'm from and I have to go to school tomorrow morning. If I update tomorrow, I promise the update won't be this crappy. It'll be longer. I won't start writing it at 8:00 like I did tonight.

And also, I just want to let you guys know that I appreciate EACH AND EVERY review you guys give me. :) Those of you who have given me really nice, detailed, in depth, sweet, constructively criticized reviews know that I try to PM you to thank you personally for helping me become a better writer. You guys are essentially the reason I feel obligated to update every single day because of how amazingly sweet and kind you guys are in my reviews. I literally put off some of my school work just to write and update as quickly as I possibly can for you guys. So please, don't ever for one moment think that I don't appreciate you guys' reviews. I read each and every one and I eagerly check my email every day to see if someone has left me a new one. I LOVE reading reviews (especially the really long, detailed, juicy ones!)

Thank you to each and every one of you that review each chapter. I really appreciate them and I love them ALL.

P.S. To my guest reviewer that posts her name as "Sarah": I deeply, deeply enjoy reading your reviews. :) I wish you had an account on here so I could PM you a couple of my thoughts and let you know personally how much I like reading what you have to say. You partially inspired me to write this Author's Note because I felt the need to let you know just how much I do look forward to hearing what you have to say.


	30. Figured It Out

"You look like crap. Here, eat this." Steph sits down and slides a chicken sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil across the table at me. It's lunchtime now and this is the first time we've talked to each other since this morning. Granted we've been on completely opposite schedules because she's been on General with Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grey and I've been on Trauma all day with Hunt and Kepner; but it's still unusual for Steph and I to go so long without speaking. I just haven't been in the best mood, so to say. I'm dealing with a lot of shit right now and while Steph is still my best friend, I don't really have the time to take out of my day to talk to her. My mind's been so busy with Alex and stuck on the things he said to me this morning.

I swear I understand that he's been going through some shit lately and he just needs someone to be there for him. I'm not a psychologist but I do understand what it's like to be going through some heavy shit when all you need is someone to be there for you. I know what that's like and I know that people say some things out of anger when they're all emotionally messed up…it doesn't take a psychologist to know all of that. It takes a person like me to know all of that. So because I know all of that, I've spent the better half of my morning convincing myself that he didn't mean anything that he said to me this morning. But I won't lie; I've been thinking a lot about the things that he's said and it really hurts. Something inside of me can't help but wonder if just a tiny part of him meant what he said…especially about me deserving to have been hit by Jason.

"I'm just not in the mood to eat, Steph." I slide the chicken sandwich back across the table at her and sip the $1.35 cup of soda I bought just to make sure I'm hydrated for the day because honestly, I'm not in the mood to drink anything either. I'm just not in the mood for much. I'm not even in the mood to see patients today but I really don't have much of a choice. I swish my straw around in the cup to play with the ice cubes at the bottom and look down at the table, making pictures out of the speckled pattern on the tabletop. I don't feel like talking to her about the reason I had to rush over to Alex's house last night either. I don't think it's much of her business anyway and I'll tell her when I'm ready but for now, it's not my business to tell. I've already done a pretty kick ass job at making Alex hate me without even doing anything to him; I don't really need to give him a reason to hate me by telling Steph his business.

"Did you eat something at Alex's last night?" She unwraps the sandwich for herself and takes the top patty off to put some ketchup on it. She's asking because she knows that I haven't eaten much of anything in the last couple days. Actually, now that Steph mentioned it, I realize that I really haven't eaten anything. The last complete meal I remember eating is everything I shoved down my throat at the cookout last weekend. Damn. The last thing I remember eating is a chocolate chip cookie at lunch after my appointment yesterday. I shake my head to answer her question. "You haven't eaten since yesterday then. You need to eat something." I open my mouth but she interrupts me. "And don't say you will… because you said that last night and you said that yesterday afternoon. You gotta be hungry…"

"I'm not hungry." I stop playing around with my straw because I'm bored of it that quickly and just sit back in my chair. I'm not lying to her about that though. I'm just not hungry. I can't usually tell when I'm hungry though, because I'm so used to actually going through the days just being hungry. But usually my stomach will growl here and there to remind me that I'm hungry…but it hasn't. "And I won't be home tonight either." Why do I feel like I'm lying to her? I know I'm not but I feel like I am. Just by not telling. I guess that's a sign telling me that she really is my best friend because I feel obligated to just tell her. I feel obligated to tell Steph what I'm really doing over Alex's house but I also feel like I have a duty to Alex to protect his privacy.

I don't know, I'm so far in over my head on this one. I'm just one freaking person and I have a limit as to how much I can take and I'm pushed way past it. I'm so past my limit. I'm stuck between wanting to cry because my feelings are hurt, wanting to scream because nobody knows how I'm feeling and I feel so full inside. I feel like every emotion I've had within the last month and a half of knowing Alex is just so built up. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I have to ask… what about me? Why isn't there somebody there for me to hold me while I cry? I'm there for him. Is it too much to ask for him to be there for me as well? I'm only one person and I'm being spread way too thin in all of this. Can I just have a timeout?

I'm beginning to think that taking this internship was a bad idea. I should've just taken the job offer I got back in Massachusetts to work at Harvard Medical Center. I thought that by getting this job and moving to Seattle, I'd have a new start and a better life for myself. I thought for sure that things would turn around and my bad luck would subside as soon as I was on my way to becoming a surgeon. But it seems like ever since I got here, my life's been getting worse. The first guy that was interested in me here ended up throwing me against walls and punching me in my face. I meet a really nice guy and he winds up being engaged. The only good thing that's happened to me is Stephanie. She's the ONLY good thing that's come of this. Maybe I'm not meant to be happy… no matter here in the world I go.

"I'm so stressed out, Steph." I rest my chin in my hands and close my eyes. I have a bad, pulsating headache in the temple of my head. My head's been hurting ever since I woke up this morning but it's only been a dull aching sensation behind my eyes. It's starting to radiate back to my brain and down my neck now. "I haven't even been hungry, that's the thing. I haven't been hungry, I've been fucking stressed. My fucking head is banging and I can't even think about food. I'm so stressed out. My appetite's been fucked up for a couple days and every time I try to eat, I can't even force anything down because I'm NOT hungry." I lie to her because I know she'd worry about me more if I told her that I haven't even realized that I haven't eaten anything in a while. "All I want to do is take an hour long, streaming hot shower and go to sleep. I've been tired a lot... I'm just so over everything." I didn't lie about that though. I have been tired; tired of everything but mostly just tired of being tired.

"Why are you stressed though?" I knew she was gonna ask that and the honest answer is that I can't tell her. I was stressed out long before Alex threw this "Izzie left me" bullshit on me and I'm even more stressed now that he did. An easier question would definitely be "why aren't I stressed out these days?" Maybe then I'd be able to actually answer that. "Besides the fact that our job is enough to drive a nun to commit sins… why are you so stressed? Do you need a break? 'Cause we can go out drinking tonight if you need to…my treat."

"I just need a break from everything and everybody for a minute." I put my head down on the table and sigh. My stomach is hurting along with my head hurting. Before I know it, my hair is gonna start falling out. I'm a mess. I need more than just A drink. I need multiple drinks and a nap. My mind just keeps wandering to Alex and the more I think about whether or not he's okay at home by himself, the sicker I make myself. "We can't go drinking tonight though. I promised Alex I'd come back and spend the night with him. He's going through a… rough patch." I rub my eyes and pick my head up, extremely exaggerating the situation. He's going through something deeper than a rough patch, if you ask me. "Whatever, I have to pee and I have to go round on Hunt's post-ops." I pick up the cup of soda I was drinking and toss it in the garbage when I get up and walk away, not even telling Steph goodbye. I'm just not in the mood for anything and I know she'll understand. I don't have to round on Hunt's post-ops for another twenty minutes yet, so I think I'll go sit up in Brynn's room for a little while. She's doing much better these days and sometimes she's the only one I can stand being around.

I tuck my pager in my pocket and head towards the exit of the cafeteria. Before I go visit Brynn and round on Dr. Hunt's patients, I snag a chocolate pudding cup and a plastic spoon from the dessert cart near the door. I hold the pudding cup and the spoon in my left hand and leave out the door. As soon as I hit the hallway that leads out to the main lobby of the hospital, I bank left and disappear into the bathroom. I push open the first stall and lock it behind myself. I untie the drawstrings on my scrub pants and pull them down along with my underwear. Something pink catches my eye in the base of my panties, though. _…Jesus Christ. _I roll my eyes and grit my teeth together hard.

I'm really just so incredibly stressed out, nobody understands. My body is all fucked up from all of this stress. I was literally just on my period last week and now I'm so stressed out that it came back. My poor body is just going through it. I sit down on the toilet and pull an abundant amount of toilet paper out of the dispenser. I would bother Steph for a tampon but I really don't want her to know just how stressed I am. She knows that I'm stressed but not _this _stressed. She's bound to notice that I just had a period and I don't want her to worry about me. I'm not even worried about myself; I just know that this whole situation is really taking a toll on me. I'll be okay eventually. It's not like I've never been stressed out before.

The bleeding seems pretty light so I wad up the toilet paper and press it neatly into the base of my panties. It's so light that I'm sure that the toilet paper will hold up for me until I get home to take care of myself. I'm a doctor so I'm pretty sure that my stress level is the reason that I'm on my period again, but it makes me feel better to blame it on the fact that my birth control fell out last night. I rest my elbows on my knees and cover my face with my hands, breathing deeply. _I really have to start taking care of myself. _I used to take better care of myself than this but I swear ever since I moved here to Seattle, I've just stopped taking care of myself and started taking care of everyone else. I've allowed myself to be beaten, I've allowed my heart to be broken more times than I care to acknowledge… I just don't take very good care of myself these days. But I'm gonna start.

I wipe myself and pull my pants up back around my waist so I can go back to work.

**X X X **

I gasp so I seem like I'm genuinely interested in the little paper she's holding up. "You made that for me?! Really?!" I make my voice all high-pitched and childlike just for her. "It's beautiful!" I take the white sheet of paper out of her tiny little hand and stare at it. There's a mess of pink and purple lines up in one corner and green lines on the bottom. There's a black circle in the middle and around the big black circle is a group of smaller orange circles. I put it down on the stand beside where I'm sitting and grab the pudding and the spoon I swiped from the cafeteria and pop the top off the pudding cup. "Thank you for my pretty picture." I stir the pudding to mix it up and sit down on her bed. "Here, I brought you a present too." As she always does when I come visit her, she crawls across the bed to me and curls up in my lap. I wrap my arms around her little body to make sure she doesn't fall or anything like that. She greedily plucks the pudding cup from my hand and puts her head on my chest. "What do you say, Brynnie?"

"…Taytew." I guess I'm getting better at decoding baby babble because I know that she meant "Thank you." She awkwardly grabs the spoon and tries to stick it in her mouth, poking her cheek instead. Instead of moving the spoon over to her mouth, she moves her face and successfully finds her mouth. She gets a little bit of pudding on my scrub top but I honestly don't care. I rub her hair, uncurling the little ringlets at the ends of her soft, dark brown locks. I heard Dr. Robbins talking to social services about how they found Brynn a home. Some couple from Redmond is interested in permanently adopting her. I thought about asking social services to meet the couple that plans on adopting her but I guess it's not really my business. I'm just glad that somebody's gonna give her a home that isn't a foster home. She needs a permanent home. I hope she's lucky enough to go to good people. She lifts her head up from my chest and offers he the slobbery, pudding infested spoon. "…Heyoh Doh Doh."

I tune my nose up and shake my head. "That's okay honey… you go on and take this one." I appreciate the fact that she offered to feed me and all but no thanks. Even if I could stomach to eat anything, the spoon was slobbery and gross and I wouldn't have been caught dead eating off it. It's nice that she asked though. "Thank you for asking me though. Jo Jo's not hungry."

I'd better wrap it up here. I can't be late to round on Hunt's post-ops because he'll kill me if I am. The only thing that's getting me through right now is the fact that half my shift is over. It's almost time for me to go home, or back to Alex's for that matter. Whatever, I don't care where I go. I just need to take a headache pill and get off my feet. I'm so tired and my head is blaring. Not to mention I feel gross. I want to take a shower too. Just a few more hours though.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

I really hope Jo comes back tonight. In all honesty, I wouldn't blame her if she decided not to. If she said to hell with me and decided to stay at home instead of coming back to my sorry ass, I wouldn't blame her and I wouldn't even have a reason to be mad. I treated her so bad this morning that I've been laying here all day trying to find a way to fix it. Sometimes when I get mad, things fly out of my mouth and I don't mean to say such hurtful things but I do. Everything I said to her this morning was completely out of line. Why do we always do that? We as in us humans, I mean. Why do we always push the people that we love away? I think it's some kind of human instinct for us to do that and we don't mean to but it happens and we don't realize the damage that we've done until it's already done. I never meant to hurt Jo. I was just thinking that maybe if I hurt her while I was hurting, I'd feel better. Stupid, I know. But I never claimed to be smart.

I miss Iz a lot, you know? I miss knowing that I had her. I miss knowing that no matter what, at the end of the day, I'd have someone to come home to. I never thought in a million years that I'd actually lose her. I'm not oblivious and I _did _notice that the two of us had fallen off a little bit but I never thought that we'd actually be done and over with, let alone did I expect her to be the one to end it. I always thought I'd be the one to call it quits. I still have love in my heart for her somewhere… and I think I always will have some degree of love for her. I've been doing some thinking though. Some sober thinking, that is. And you know what I've come up with? Maybe Iz was right. Maybe us getting married was a mistake and maybe she sent me a lifeline by walking out on me. It doesn't mean that it stings any less but maybe when the hurt wears off, I can be happy with someone like Jo.

How the hell am I gonna make it up to her? I owe Jo at least something to make up for all the messed up things I said to her. She acted like she didn't mind me saying nasty things like that but I know somewhere inside of her I had to have hurt her feelings. I've been hurting her a lot lately. I haven't been sure if a lot of things lately. I'm not sure just how long the sting of losing Izzie will be here. I'm not sure if I'll ever completely get over her. I'm not sure if I'll ever even want to be in another relationship. But if there's one thing I'm absolutely sure of, it's that I'm sorry for hurting Jo. Even worse than missing Izzie at this point is the disappointment I have in myself for treating her the way I do. I treat her bad and I realize that and I vow to her and myself that I'll do better. I will do so much better.

I guess maybe Iz leaving isn't so bad. If she saw that we were making a mistake then I'm gonna try to trust her judgment with it. I guess I kind of saw it coming. We weren't happy with each other. Jo can make me happy if I stop treating her so horribly. Why did I think that I needed Iz to be happy? Jo's right in front of me… she's literally RIGHT here. And I can have her and we could be good. I figured it all out...

She can make me happy if I let her.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Alex…" I shut his front door behind myself and put my bag down on the floor next to the shoe rack. The door was already open which I found strange… "Alex!" I call his name again, kicking my shoes off at the door. I shut and lock the door and pick up my bag again. I brought enough clothes to stay here for tonight and tomorrow morning. I think that'll be enough. I don't anticipate him needing me anymore after tonight. Steph didn't mind me not coming home tonight. We're off tomorrow and she's staying over Heather and Leah's anyway because Leah needs help with something. "….Alex?" I push the straps of my bag up on my shoulder and jog up the steps. I go straight to his room. He's not in his room but the bed is made with fresh clean sheets and the master bathroom door is shut. I put my bag down next to his dresser and go over to the bathroom door. I knock softly on the door. "Alex… you okay?" _Don't ask him if he's okay. That really set him off last time._

I tuck my hair behind my ear and press it to the door to listen. I hear the shower water running. I jiggle the handle to see if it's locked and it's not so I twist it. I poke my head through the door and look around. His clothes are all over the floor and it's a little bit foggy in here. "Alex." I clear my throat. "I'm here…" He slides the curtain back and looks out. I step back a little bit because I'm unsure if he's still…mad, you know? He said some pretty mean things to me this morning. Is he over it? "Are you um…" My voice is so small. I think I have the nerve to be afraid of how he's gonna treat me. "Are you hungry?" I do care about him though. He's been alone in this house all day and he probably hasn't eaten anything. I'm not much of a cook but I can whip him up something.

"Dinner's coming…I ordered out." He disappears back behind the shower curtain and after a few seconds, the water stops and his hand reaches out and grabs a towel off the rack next to the shower. He pulls the curtain back when he's got the towel around his waist and steps out. "How was work? Anybody ask about me?" He adjusts the towel around his waist and walks towards me. "Did you tell anyone?"

"It's not my business to tell." I tuck my hair behind my ear again and fold my arms across my chest. "And nobody really asked. I was in Trauma all day so…" I turn around and leave out of the bathroom. I sit down on the bed. "What'd you do all day?"

"Cleaned up… and slept." Surprisingly, he sits down on the bed next to me, soaking wet and all. "Hey…" He grabs my hand so I look at him. "About this morning…" I bite my lip as soon as he mentions it. "Look…." He rubs my fingers with his own fingers and brings my hand up to his mouth to kiss it. "I'm sorry." I just nod my head. I knew he didn't mean it. I knew he didn't. It just scared the shit out of me to think that he might have meant it. "I didn't mean any of that shit…you know that, don't you?" I nod my head again. "And I know I've been saying sorry to you a lot lately but this time is different. I really mean it this time. I shouldn't have said any of that to you. You didn't deserve that. You didn't need to hear any of that. I'm a piece of garbage for saying those things to you. I was just mad. I was upset and I thought that by making you upset as well, I'd feel better. I felt worse. I'm sorry Jo." He lets my hand go and puts his hand on my jaw to raise my face up to his. He kisses me on my lips, softly. "Okay? I'm sorry…" Even though he's wet from his shower, I put my head on his shoulder to let him know I'm not holding grudges. "I didn't mean that." He rests his hand in the middle of my back. "And thank you… for not givin' up on me."

"I told you I wasn't going anywhere." I reach up and push his hair back. "I meant that. I'm not going anywhere." I'm glad that he apologized. He didn't really need to but I'm glad that he did. I get the kind of person he is. I get that he didn't meant that. It's just nice that he apologized.

"And about last night…"

"Alex, no… you don't—"

"But I do. I just want you to understand that I knew what I was doing. Don't think that it only happened because I was drunk. I would've done it anyway." My mind is spinning the more and more he's talking about it. I wish he'd shut up about it. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to think about him going down on me, I don't want to think about me doing what I did, I don't want to think about the sex. I just don't want to think about it anymore. It's done, it's over, it was embarrassing for me to have done that all over his couch, whatever. I'm done thinking about it. "I told you that you're different. I meant that. You're not just… someone. You're not a random girl to me, Jo… you know?" _Okay, SHUT UP! _The room is spinning, not just my head. I'm getting sick. "I think I might…"

"…Alex." I'm really starting to feel sick. He's gonna tell me that he loves me. He's gonna say it and I don't want him to say it. I don't feel good. I don't want him to say it to me when he's still all messed up about Izzie but even more so than that, I want him to stop talking. His voice is making me sick to my freaking stomach. "Just be quiet…" I plead with him. I'm so sick.

"No Jo, it's okay." The tone of his voice raises up a pitch and he sounds so excited; like he's had an epiphany. "That's the thing. It's okay." He holds his hands out like he's trying to regulate. "I was thinking all day and you know what? What if it's okay? It's okay." This is way too much for me. This is too much. I'm already stressed out and I don't need him to do this to me. "What if Izzie left for a reason? Everything happens for a reason, right? What if the reason is because I'm supposed to be with you? I figured it all out. I'm done fighting it. I love you. I really do. It snuck up on me but I do. I love you… and I think that you love me too. And I think you're scared but that's okay. Don't be scared. Let me love you… you can love me back. We can be in love… a couple of street kids in love. I think you're scared because you love me too… am I right?"

The pit of my stomach constricts and my shoulders hunch and before I can hold it back, my head involuntarily thrusts forward and clear vomit comes out of my mouth, onto the rug. My throat burns and my nose is running but god, I feel so much better after getting that out. I don't need him to love me right now… I really don't. I need him to love me some other time… not now. Not while he doesn't mean it. Not while he's all messed up. I can't love him back and that scares me. If I love him back… I'll fuck it up. It always happens. He'll love me and somehow I'll mess that up for myself the SECOND I start to really admit to myself that I love him. No. He can't love me. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and look at him. I'm not sure if my eyes are watering from puking or if I'm crying.

"…You didn't want to hear that, did you?" He notices the look on my face. "I shouldn't have said that… shouldn't I have?" I shake my head slowly and stand up. "But Jo…"

"It's not you…" I groan. "You have a towel or something I can clean that up with? I've been feeling like shit all day… it's not you." I tie my hair back with a rubber band that I had on my wrist from charting today. "I don't feel good."

He springs up off the bed and rushes over to me. "Lay down then. I'll clean it." He puts his hand to my forehead. "You got a fever. Lay down… I'll take care of you."

"Alex I'm fine… I just don't feel good."

"Lay down. You take care of me, I take care of you. That's how this relationship is gonna work." Like I'm nothing but a sack of feathers to him, he hoists me up and puts me in the bed. "When you feel better, go take a shower and get in your pajamas. I'll bring you dinner whenever it's here. Just lay down and rest. I got you." He kisses my forehead. "This isn't gonna turn out like my last relationship. We're gonna last…"

"…We're in a relationship?" I ask.

"…Well you're not my friend anymore, are you?"

"I guess not."


	31. Shut Up

"Well I can't say I'm surprised…are you?" The bartender sits three shot glasses in the middle of the counter and Cristina hands one to me and one to Mere. I finally decided to tell them that Iz left me. I told them this morning when I got to work because Mere actually asked why I took the day off yesterday and Cristina was wondering why my name wasn't on the OR board today. I explained that I took a personal day yesterday and my name wasn't on the OR board today because I was supposed to have taken today off as well but I was feeling okay enough to go to work this morning. The two of them somehow bribed me into stopping here at the bar with them after work for a drink so we could talk about it. "Something told me you and Izzie weren't going to last. I just figured you'd end it before she did." She downs her shot and slides it back across the counter at the bartender.

"Who needs her anyway?" Mere tilts her head back and takes her shot with ease and belches, unladylike and very disgusting. "You'd think that if she really thought it was a mistake she would've ended it a long time ago. You don't just wake up one day thinking that marriage is a mistake. She had to have wanted to end it for quite some time now, don't you think?" The bartender refills both of their shot glasses and I hurry up and down mine before she walks away with the refill bottle of tequila. Usually when I come here, I just get cheap bottle of beer and that'll hold me over for the night. I'm a little tired of beer though because Jo and I spent the night drinking last night. She was feeling better after she threw up last night so the two of us spent our time drinking and watching movies together until the both of us fell asleep. When I left her this morning though, she was sick as a dog. It's a good thing she was off work today.

"Yeah well…" I chug down my refill shot and turn the glass over, choking back a burp. "M y stupid ass told Jo I loved her last night." Both of their jaws drop when I tell them that. I nod my head and drum my fingers along the countertop. "Completely scared the shit out of her too. Almost made her run." The burp I held back comes back up and I just let it out this time. I'm done drinking while I'm here. I have to drive home soon and plus, I don't want to be drunk when I get home to her. "I just thought it was the right time to tell her." The more I think about it, the more I realize what an asshole move that was. I scared the crap out of her. "Iz left Monday night and for some reason, she was the first person I thought about. I called her and she came running. And I said some fucked up things to her but she still stayed. I can't imagine what I'd do without her and you know me. You know I wouldn't have told her I love her if I didn't mean it. I meant it. But I scared the hell outta her."

"Well I must say that the hairball brings out the best in you." Cristina's on her third shot and so is Mere. I'm done with the shots. I'm actually about to leave. I kinda wanna get home to Jo. I miss her. "But it's Wednesday. You really think it was smart to tell her you love her not even a week after your fiancée left you? I don't know how the hairball thinks but if it were me, I'd think you were just talking out your ass to get over your ex. Your thinking is clouded and Wilson doesn't strike me as the dumb type. She's smart and she knows that your thinking is cloudy. It probably upset her more than anything that you felt the need to tell her how you felt NOW of all times."

"But that's the thing." Okay, I kind of see her point. I see what she's saying about how it might've confused Jo and how she might've thought that I was only saying that because I'm trying to get over Izzie but that's not true. "I'm thinking clear. I'm thinking clearer than I've thought in the last four or five years. Iz left and it felt like a spot in my brain just cleaned itself out. I'm thinking clear. And I wasn't just telling her that. I wouldn't have said that to her if I didn't mean it, even if my thinking was cloudy. I know what it's like for someone to tell you that they love you but not mean it. That's why I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. Especially to Jo. She's been burned pretty bad in the past by assholes that tell her one thing. I wouldn't mess with her head like that." The more I sit here talking about her, the more I miss her. I'm ready to go home. "I gotta go guys…"

I slide off the barstool I was sitting on and push it in. Mere swallows a mouthful of tequila, wipes her mouth and leans back to look at me. "Wait, Alex." I stop moving so fast to go home to hear what she has to say. "If you're so serious about loving her and being in a serious relationship with her, can we at least meet the girl? You can tell her to come sit by us when we eat lunch or you could at least invite her out to drink with us. That's the mistake you made with Izzie. Me and Cristina didn't get to check her out enough before you put a ring on it and now look. She left you and you guys didn't work out. Can we at least get to know Jo this time around?"

"Yeah, she has to pass inspection. We need to check her out…outside of working conditions because when she's at work, she's nothing but a kiss ass." Cristina nods her head in conjunction with Meredith.

"…Fine." I put my hands in my coat pockets and shrug my shoulders. "But you two can't scare her off. I'm gonna make this work this time around. You two aren't allowed to scare her away. She scares easily and she's not like you guys. She's… she's soft. And she's little and she's really nice but she's not a doormat. And she's not gonna let you guys walk all over her. Promise me you'll be nice? You can't be mean to her. I'm serious about her. I think she's the one for me and you guys HAVE to at least try to like her and be nice to her."

"We're not _animals_, Alex." Mere rolls her eyes at me. "Invite her to sit with us at lunch tomorrow. We'll be nice."

"Alright." I mumble and turn to leave. I mean it with those two. Let's just say that Mere and Cristina can be kind of… rough. I already scared Jo enough by telling her that I love her last night, I don't need those two to freak her out even more. If the shenanigans don't stop between the two of us, she's gonna run. Between me dropping the "I love you" bomb and Mere and Cristina "inspecting" her tomorrow, she's gonna end up like Izzie and she's gonna leave me. And for some reason, I feel like if Jo ran out on me, I'd be a lot more broken than I was when Izzie ran out. It's just that… the relationship I have with Jo is more fragile, far more delicate than the one I had with Izzie. Not in the sense that it's easily broken because actually, it's stronger than the one Izzie and I had in that sense. I've thrown a lot of bullshit on Jo and she's held up so she's actually pretty strong.

What I meant is that the relationship I have with her is more near and dear to me. I feel like I can tell her everything and she'll just get it. She's more than my girlfriend, she's my best friend. I just now got her to actually agree to be my girlfriend. I don't think I'd ever be okay again if she left me like Izzie left me. If I lose Jo, I'm losing my best friend, my lover, she's literally my backbone. I have more to lose with Jo than I had to lose with Izzie and that's what I mean when I say that our relationship is more fragile and delicate.

**X X X **

I push my key inside of the lock, twist it and open up the door. I shuffle inside the house and shut the door behind me, locking up for the night. I kick my shoes off next to the door and take my coat off, throwing it on the railing to the upstairs. I hear the TV playing from inside the living room so I turn the corner and walk through the arch that leads to my living room. She's laying on the loveseat in a heap of blankets. All I see is blankets. In fact, if I didn't see thick brunette hair spiraling out from underneath the blankets, I'd swear there was nothing but blankets on the loveseat. "Jo…" I call her name, walking further inside the living room. She doesn't answer which indicates to me that she's either sleeping or dead. There's a little blue garbage can sitting on the floor next to the loveseat. When I left her this morning, she was in my bed sleeping, running a high fever. She felt better for a couple hours last night while we were drinking but sometime during the middle of the night, she woke up with really bad stomach pains. She told me that they were just period cramps and she was fine after that. She threw up again this morning before she went back to sleep. I think she has the flu.

I pull back one of the blankets she barricaded herself underneath to see if she's awake. She's peacefully asleep but her forehead is so sweaty that her hair is sticking to it and her face literally has NO color in it. She's completely colorless, like her skin is transparent. I don't like the way she looks. "Jo..." I move her soaking wet, sweaty hair out of her face and put my lips against her salty forehead. "Wake up…" I glance down inside the garbage can to see if she's thrown up anything into it. It's completely empty. On the coffee table is the plate of pancakes and bacon I made her this morning before I left. She didn't touch any of it. Sighing, I walk away and decide to clean up while she sleeps. I'm worried about her. I'm a doctor so I know the flu when I see the flu of course and she definitely has the flu. But she hasn't eaten a damn thing in a really long time and that scares me.

I pick up the plate of breakfast I made for her and take it to the kitchen to empty it and wash it. On the counter is the plate of dinner from last night that she didn't touch either. I ordered spaghetti from this Italian place down the street last night and she didn't touch it. The only thing I remember her consuming in my presence is two bottles of beer last night. I clear both of her plates and stick them in the sink until I'm ready to wash the dishes. I open up my junk drawer beside my fridge and grab my thermometer. I take it back to the living room and go back over to her. She's sweating so badly so she must be hot, yet she's wearing a baggy hoodie and a pair of my boxer shorts underneath the covers. I turn the thermometer on and slip it inside her mouth through the corners of her lips and rest it in her cheek because there's no way I'll get her to put it under her tongue while she's asleep. _100.4. It's gone down since this morning. _But she's still not and sweaty so this hoodie's gotta go. I pull the covers off her completely and see that she's curled up in the fetal position. Her hair is in a lazy ponytail that covers her entire arm because it's so thick and her arms are wrapped around her middle, like her stomach was hurting her before she fell asleep.

I grab her hand and lift her arm up by it. I pull at the hoodie sleeve and slide her arm down through it. The hoodie itself is sweaty. I gently pull her ponytail and her head through the head hole and slide her other arm out of it. She was wearing a red tank top underneath the hoodie so she's not naked or anything. Her bony little hip is sticking out from underneath her tank top though, so I pull it down. Like always, she's moaning in her sleep. I hate to wake her but I've waited all day to see her and now she's asleep? "Jo…" I put my hands against her arm and shake her. "Come on, Jo… get up." While I'm shaking her, she throws her elbow at me and gives me a grumpy, screechy moan that clearly says she wants me to leave her alone. "I don't care. Get up. I waited all day to see you and you're asleep. Get up. You'll sleep when you're dead. Up."

"No… stop it." She mumbles, her voice clearly filled with sleep. "I'm so tired." She actually lifts her head up and looks at me. Her cheek on the side of her body that she was laying on is so red. She shakes her head and moans again. "I'm soooo tired… just lemme sleep…" She slams her head back down on the couch. "A few more minutes."

"No, wake up." I pull her by her arms until she's sitting up. "When I called to talk to you at lunchtime you were sleeping. You told me you just took a shower because your period leftand you were going back to sleep. Get your little ass up. I know you're feeling better. You didn't throw up in the garbage can and your temperature is way down. You're just being lazy." I put my arms around her torso and hoist her up because she's so light. She screeches at me like a cat. "Come on, I missed you. I missed you all day and you're not sleeping anymore. You slept all day." I toss her over my shoulder and again, she screeches.

"I'm gonna throw up all over your back." She mumbles again. I shrug my shoulders. "Put me down…" I squeeze my arms around her legs while she's over my shoulder so I don't drop her and I start walking towards the steps. "Alex okay, I'm serious now. Put me down. I'm awake, I'm not sleeping. Put me down… DOWN." I start walking up the steps to go to my bedroom. "Please don't drop me."

"You talk too much." I push my bedroom door open with my foot and put her gently down on the bed. "I wasn't gonna drop you. You weigh what? Ten pounds?" She curls up on the bed and closes her eyes. "JO! WAKE YOUR ASS UP!" I slap her on her ass hard but not hard enough to actually hurt her. It jiggles. She pops her head up and glares at me like I just slapped her in her face. "Then get up. You've been asleep all day. There's no way in hell you're still tired." She rolls her eyes, rolls over on her stomach and burrows her face in my pillow. "Okay then." I sit down on the bed and tap her ass again. I'm just gonna annoy her until she decides to get up. I poke her buttcheeks because they're soft and they jiggle when I poke them fast.

"Oh my god, why do you insist on torturing me?!" She picks her head up. "Get off my ass. I'm trying to sleep. You are so annoying."

"Nope. Not till you wake up. You're gonna force me to resort to extreme measures." Since she's laying on her stomach, I straddle her and sit down on her lower legs. I lean forward and grab some of her hair to play with. "Come on. I wanna talk to you and stuff. I missed you all day and now that I'm home you should wake up and talk to me." I brush my fingers through her hair. "Wake up…" With her face still pushed into the pillow, I hear her say "make me" even though it's muffled by the pillow. "Don't tell me that. You know I'll make you… don't tempt me like that." I stop playing so nicely with her hair and wrap it around my hand to pull it instead, like I always pull it when we're having sex. She hates when I pull her hair but she usually lets me do it anyway. I like how she can go from playful to sexy all within a matter of seconds. I find that in itself to be extremely sexy.

She takes her face from inside the pillow and moves her face to the side so that she's lying on her cheek instead of laying facedown. "Well you're boring me to sleep." Her eyes are open and she's smiling. "You'd better find a way to keep me awake before I fall back asleep."

"I can find a couple ways." I lean forward and lay flat against her back. Even though she's lying flat on her stomach, I slide my hands underneath of her and kiss her on her lips. "You're not gonna throw up on me while I'm the middle of it, are you?" I kiss her lips again and grab her hips so she'll be lying on top of me when I switch places with her. Just in case we do something in a couple minutes, I want her to start out on top. I hold her hips tightly and roll over so that we switch positions. She takes it upon herself to straddle me though.

"No, I'm feeling way better." She admits and puts her hands on my chest while she's sitting on top of me. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I think it's a 24-hour bug or something like that." She reaches back and pulls her hair out of the lazy ponytail she had it tied back in. "Can stress make you sick like that though? 'Cause stress is the reason my period's all crazy right now." She's finally starting to sound like my Jo. She was sounding a little evil for a minute there but she's sounding so much better. I bend my knees and slide my legs up so that she's more comfortable while she's sitting on top of me. "I've been feeling better for a while though." She sits back and rests her back against my legs. "Oh, and you're not getting your boxers back. They're comfy."

"I'm glad you're feeling better." I put my hands on her hips because they're the only things I can reach. "I do want you to eat something though. You haven't been eating anything… I'm worried about you. Your appetite is messed up… "

"I know. I'm not hungry though." She leans forward and lies down on my chest. I slide my legs back down so they're flat. "It's not even like I'm not eating to lose weight or anything along the lines of that. I'm literally just not hungry. I feel fine. I'm not hungry, my stomach isn't growling. And I can't even attempt to eat anything. I'm just not hungry. I didn't even realize that I haven't been eating until Steph pointed it out."

"You want me to make you an appointment? Or I can talk to Mere and see if she recognizes your symptoms." I slide my fingertips along her spine and let her rest on me.

"It's probably a stomach bug. I'm just sick. Headache, tiredness, vomiting, fever; classic flu symptoms. It might be the stomach flu."

"That doesn't explain why you haven't been eating and why your monthly's all whacked out."

"I told you I've been stressed out." She sighs. "Between my job and you and Jason and my crappy car that just died on me again this morning, I've been stressed. Stress will take your period away." She moves her head to the center of my chest. "And plus, my birth control thing fell out so that might be why I was bleeding yesterday. It probably wasn't even my period. I had my period a couple weeks ago."

"I still think you need to see someone about why you're not eating. Either you see someone or I'm shoving dinner down your throat. I can't have you dying on me." I kiss her on her cheek. "And you had those bad cramps last night. If that wasn't your period then what the hell was it? At least make an appointment to see the lady doctor."

"I don't know." She closes her eyes. "I'm gonna go see about getting my birth control switched though. For some reason, my IUD doesn't wanna stay in so I'm gonna get on the pill or that little implant in your arm or something. I'll ask her then if cramping and stuff if normal when an IUD falls out."

"You're not pregnant, are you?" I'm sure she'd tell me if she was but you know… I just wanna cover all bases.

"NO!" She sounds almost insulted. Oh yeah, I forgot she doesn't want kids. "I'm on birth control and I don't mess around with that shit. I had Steph bring me a morning after pill today. That's how I realized my car died this morning. I tried to go grab one myself but my car died so I had her bring one to me. That shit was fifteen bucks, it better work." She sighs again. "And besides… you're pretty good at pulling out."

"Just making sure." I clear my throat. "I wanna be a dad someday but not right now, you know? A baby would be so inconvenient at the moment. I'd be pissed if I had a kid right now. I at least want to be an attending before I have kids, you know?"

"…Would it bother you if you weren't a dad?"

"What do you mean?"

"…Like if we end up being together for a while… would it bother you if you never became one? Because I don't want kids, you know? And if I have it my way, I'm never having kids. But you do… so what if I don't want them and you do? It would bother the hell out of me to have a kid, I'm not gonna lie. Like… if I became a mom, I feel like I'd resent my kid because it was never wanted. So I just don't want them. But would it bother you if you were never a dad? Is that… a deal breaker?"

"…I mean…" I never thought about how that would affect our relationship. I never put two and two together. I really want kids and she's adamant about not having them. Shit. "It would suck… I really do want to be a dad someday….Why don't you want babies? You're good with them…"

"I'm not arguing with you about this tonight Alex."

"Who's arguing?" I question her. "I'm not arguing, I'm just asking…"

"I DON'T WANT KIDS, OKAY? I swear to god I'd resent a kid if I had one because I DON'T want one. I don't want to disappoint anyone by being a shitty mother. My kid would be so unwanted that it's crazy. I would hate it. Call me a horrible person, whatever. I swear I'd hate my baby."

"Okay Jo, calm down. We don't have to worry about kids for a long time. Maybe you'll change your mind or maybe I'll change mine. Calm down babe. We don't even have to worry about kids…" I stroke her hair to calm her down. For some reason, I don't believe her. I don't believe that she'd hate her baby. Jo doesn't strike me as the coldhearted type like that. I don't believe her but she clearly doesn't want to talk about having kids so we just won't. We don't have to worry about kids for a while.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"What'd you eat for breakfast this morning?" She asks me. I'm not sure if this is a blessing or a curse anymore. When I got to work this morning and I heard that Dr. Bailey needed two interns to be on her service today and the two just so happened to be me and Steph, I was initially excited. I've spent fifteen minutes in the Genome Lab synthesizing a p53 gene with my best friend and I'm ready to rip my fucking head off. All she's done is mother-hen me. She wants to know if I'm okay, what I've eaten, if I slept well last night…LEAVE ME ALONE. I'm twenty eight years old, I don't need her checking up on me. I've been trying to ignore her but it's not fucking working. I thought that if I just ignored her, it'd go away. I was wrong. All she does is talk louder when I ignore her. "Did you eat anything at all?"

I stop looking at the computer for the synthesis for a second to glare at her. "Steph. Leave me alone. I'M OKAY." I'm trying so hard not to explode but I swear I'm about to snap. Between her and Alex, I don't know who's worse. Alex wants to know everything too but Steph is just so pushy! "I ate a bagel at Alex's this morning. A whole entire bagel. Not a half, a whole. A bagel…okay? With lots and lots of cream cheese." I'm lying to her. I didn't eat a damn thing for breakfast this morning. I'm sorry but I'm just not hungry. I literally have no desire to eat anything and that's not my fault. But I'm not gonna sit here and force myself to eat when I'm not hungry just because my best friend and my boyfriend think I should. "Now leave me alone." I go back to staring at the synthesis to see what's next.

"Prove it." She stands in front of the computer and if she wasn't my best friend, I would knock her teeth out. She's irritating the holy hell out of me. She stopped at the vending machine this morning and got a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips out of it. She pops the bag open and holds it out to me. "Eat a chip. Just one chip." She shakes the bag and keeps it in front of me. "One chip and I'll leave you alone."

I take a breath and sigh. _Oh… Oh god. _"…Get those away from me." I push the bag away.

"Eat one chip and I'll leave you alone Jo. Okay? One chip." She holds the bag underneath my nose.

I breathe through my mouth and not my nose so I don't have to smell the chips. I'm gonna blow chunks all over this computer. "I'm serious…Steph." My throat is closing up and my stomach is starting to constrict. "Get those things away from me… they stink so bad."

"I knew you were lying." She reaches her own hand into the chip bag and pops one into her mouth. "I'm worried about you, Jo… you won't eat anything. What's wrong with you? You're sick. You don't need to be here." She's chomping loudly and my stomach is still…ugh. "I'm so worried about you. You know what happens if you don't eat? You haven't eaten anything in days. You're starving yourself." She grabs another chip out of the bag and holds it out to me. "Just one thing."

"….Steph!" I bawl my hands up into fists. "Get the damn chips away from me!"

"No! You're gonna sit here and you're gonna eat something and you're gonna tell me why the hell you're starving yourself! You're not fat, what's your malfunction?! Do you have an eating disorder?"

"NO!" I lick my lip and take a deep breath again. She won't get this fucking chip out of my face and it stinks so incredibly bad. I can't do this anymore. I clamp my hand around my mouth and bolt across the Genome Lab to the garbage can. The noise that comes out of my mouth when I vomit into the garbage can is disturbing. I spit and pick my head up. _How does someone throw up when there's nothing in her stomach to throw up? _When I think I'm done, my shoulders hunch and my stomach constricts so hard that it hurts and I throw up some more. I almost threw that round up onto the floor because I'm hovering over the can, so I sit down next to it and hold it steady. I'm so sick.

"…Dude…" Steph sits down on the floor next to me and puts her hand on my back. "Are you okay?"

I spit into the can and close my eyes. I'm still so nauseous. I'm gonna throw up again, just give me a minute. She smells like sour cream and onions and it's making me so sick. "Those chips stunk so bad… get away from me. You still smell like them…"

"The chips made you sick? But you didn't even eat one…"

"The smell!" I wipe my mouth and take deep, even breaths.

"….Oh god." She stops touching me immediately. "You're pregnant."

"I'm NOT pregnant." I put the can down because I think I'm finished. "I'm just sick. I have something…"

"Yeah. It's called a baby in your stomach."

"Shut up." She's really irritating me today for some reason. Just her voice is irritating. "It doesn't make any fucking sense for me to be pregnant." And it doesn't. Shit just doesn't add up for me to be pregnant. "If I'm pregnant, I'd have to be a day pregnant and if I was a day pregnant, I wouldn't be throwing the fuck up already. It doesn't make any sense." I stand up with shakily legs and start to walk back over to the computer. "If anything, I got pregnant when I had sex two nights ago. You can't be two days pregnant Steph, get real."

"Jo, look at yourself. You threw up at the SMELL of my potato chips. You're so in denial and you're SO knocked up."

"Just shut up Stephanie. You're really pissing me off today."

"Want me to go up to OB and steal you a pregnancy test? Or I'll draw your blood… just find out for sure."

"…I'll take a test… and WHEN it comes back negative, then will you leave me the hell alone?"

"Totally. I'll leave you alone if the test comes back negative." She nods and takes the bag of potato chips away from me. "My conscience won't be so guilty if it comes back negative then."

"Why would you have a guilty conscience?"

"Just knowing that my niece or nephew is floating around in there and you're starving it to death is enough to make me feel like I should be shoving a Twinkie down your throat." She sounds pissed at me. "But if the test comes back negative then I can sleep at night knowing that you're just starving yourself to death and not an innocent unborn little child."

"…I'm not gonna tell you to shut up again."


	32. Vertical

"It says two vertical straight lines means positive." She hands the silvery foil packet from the generic test she snatched from the Obstetrics and Gynecology floor to me while she scours the box for directions. I don't really need directions. How hard is it to piss on a stick? I use my teeth to tear open a corner of the foil packet and take the test out of it. It looks weird. It's a thin, slim white stick with a sensor at the end and a pink cap over the sensor. There's a tiny gray box towards the left of the test. "You need some help?" She's standing at the other end of the stall from me but she's watching like she's waiting for me to make a move. She wouldn't let me be in the stall alone. She forced me into the handicap stall so she could be in here with me because she wanted to make sure I didn't dip toilet water on the test or spit on it or whatever she thinks I might've done to affect the validity of the thing. I glare at her form the corner of my eye. "Sorry. You're just looking at it like you don't know what to do with it."

My fingers shake as I start to untie the drawstrings on my scrub pants. I pull the bow I tied them in this morning until it's undone and pull the blue pants down around my knees. I lift up my scrub top so it's not in the way and pin it underneath my elbow so it doesn't fall back down. I use one hand and pull my panties down as well. I sit down on the toilet seat and scoot forward so I have some room to put my hand between my legs. I pull the cap off the sensor, hold the test by the white handle and smuggle my hand between my legs. I really did have to pee so squeezing out enough pee to cover the sensor isn't really a hassle. I can't decide whether I'm glad to have Steph here with me to brave the results of the scary possibility that miracles happen and this test could come back positive. Or if I'm pissed because her watching me pee on a stick is actually pretty degrading. I don't know which one it is.

I do know that I'm not pregnant though. Like I told Steph earlier, it wouldn't make any sense for me to be pregnant. I've only had sex three times since I've moved here to Seattle. I had sex with Jason and when I did that, my birth control was still intact and working properly. Plus, I didn't have sex with Jason long enough for him to bust inside of me. The sex I had with him is way out of the question—there's no possible way he could've gotten me pregnant. "How long does it say we have to wait for it to turn?" I stand up from the toilet and shake my pee off the test. I put the cap back over the sensor and set it down on the sink while I wipe myself and redress my bottom half. I tie my pants up and go over to the sink to wash my hands.

"Three to five minutes." She folds up the instructions and shoves them back inside the box. I cross my arms and sway back and forth while I impatiently wait. I can't believe I have to go through all of this just to convince my best friend that I'm not pregnant and I just have some kind of virus. I'm not pregnant, why won't she believe me? I had sex with Alex twice but again, there's no possible way he could've gotten me pregnant either. The first time we had sex, I still had my birth control. It fell out the day after we had sex and then I got my period. I can't be pregnant if I got my period the day after so that's out of the question and plus, he pulled out. He did slip up when I was on top though, but that was my fault. He told me he was about to bust and I didn't stop. It wasn't enough for him to get me pregnant though, because the second I felt it coming out inside of me, I got off. It wasn't enough. The only way I could be pregnant right now is if I got pregnant from the sex we had three nights ago when Izzie left him. My birth control fell out after that but I took the morning after pill and even if it failed, I can't possibly be three days pregnant. I'm not pregnant. I just wish Steph would let me have the flu. I'm sick and she's busy berating me about pregnancy tests and whatnot. Can I just be sick?

"Is it time yet?" I glance over at Steph because I know she's keeping track of the time. She's all over this for some reason. I'm beginning to think she wants me to be pregnant. I'm beginning to think that she wants me to be pregnant because she wants a baby around. Steph likes babies. I don't think she realizes how much I CAN'T be pregnant. And not just because the situations and the circumstances don't add up but because a pregnancy would really ruin me. I can't even fathom what I'd do if this test does pop up positive. I can't have a baby, ever. I would be such a horrible mother. Nobody deserves me as a mother and especially not some innocent little baby that didn't ask to be made. I'm not ready to be somebody's mother and I don't think I ever will be. It scares the shit out of me to think that if I ever did have a baby, I'd be responsible for someone's life. I'm such a shitty person…I can't be responsible for someone's life. I'm already the biggest disappointment alive, I really don't need to disappoint my child by being such a horrible mom. I just can't be pregnant. I can't be.

"Almost." Steph looks at the watch on her wrist then back at me. "You want me to look at it or do you want to do it?" I'm just not even listening. I'm zoned out, thinking about all the terrifying possibilities. I'm so scared. Deep down inside, I know this test is gonna be negative but the nagging possibility of a positive test is lingering in the back of my mind and I'm so scared. What will I do if I am? I know I said I never would but I really think I might get an abortion. I wouldn't tell Alex… I would just get rid of it before it could cause problems. "Jo…" I pull myself out of my thoughts and look at her, mumbling a "hmm?" She's holding the test in her hand by the part that I didn't pee on. "I said do you want me to look at it for you or do you want to look at it?" I shrug my shoulders. I don't think it really matters who looks at it. She nudges her glasses up on her nose and looks at the test. "Congratulations." She mumbles. _No fucking way… _"You're not pregnant." She finishes and I swear I could bolt across this stall and slap the taste out of her mouth. She scared the SHIT out of me. I literally felt myself getting ready to pass out!

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" I go over to her and snatch the test out of her hand. I look at it and it's clearly boasting one solid black line. Just one. "You scared the FUCK out of me. You said congratulations, Steph… I…" I take a deep breath. "I almost passed out. Oh my god, I almost passed out. Why would you do that to me?" I hunch over and put my hands on my knees. "Holy shit…"

"I'm sorry." She apologizes, sincerely. "I said congrats because I know that you don't want a baby. I didn't even realize that congrats is usually what people say whenever they are expecting. Rookie mistake. I'm sorry." She puts her hand in the middle of my back and rubs it. "Okay, so maybe you are just sick…" She keeps rubbing my back. "But will you please eat something? You're scaring the shit out of me. I don't care if you eat a peanut… just eat. Eat anything. I'm begging you."

"…I can't." I open the door so we can leave out of the stall. I still have the test in my hand. I just don't want to throw it away in here. The last thing I need is for someone to see me and Steph coming out of the bathroom while they're coming inside. They see a pregnancy test lying in the trashcan and they get all nosy and gossipy and they spread around that intern Jo or intern Stephanie was just taking a pregnancy test. I'll toss it in the locker room garbage cans. There's always some crazy shit in those trashcans. I tuck the test away in the pocket of my pants and open the door. "Seriously. I'm not hungry. I can't eat." I stop walking to wait up for her. "I have zero appetite, nothing sounds appetizing, I can't even stomach anything. I'm not hungry. Everything treats me like those chips. If I smell something, it makes me nauseous. I physically can't eat. It's not like… it's not like I'm trying to be cute or lose some weight or anything. I really can't eat, Steph. I ate that cookie at lunch on what? Sunday? Monday? Something like that. I ate that cookie and I just haven't even thought about food. I'm not hungry and I can't force myself to eat if I'm not hungry. Nothing sounds good. Everything is disgusting to me."

"Are you feeling okay though?" She puts her hand against my forehead. "You're a little bit warm but not alarmingly warm. I mean usually people that don't eat for three days are lethargic, you seem to be pretty okay." We both start walking down the stairs to go back to the locker room because technically, we're still on our lunch hour and we have about 15 minutes left to waste away. "I want you to sit down and try to eat dinner tonight. I'm gonna make something, probably a frozen pizza. I really want you to at least try." She sits down on the benches in front of the lockers and I sit down on the other side but I lay down.

"I'll try, but…" I look up at the lights on the ceiling, deep in thought. _ Nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, irregular bleeding, no appetite, fatigue… _"You think I have a UTI? I know those could screw your body all up. And that might be why my birth control refuses to stay in." I lift my scrub top up and push my fingers against my stomach. "What if it's stomach cancer?"

"It's not stomach cancer, dumb ass." Steph laughs at me. "But UTI is a pretty good bet. You make an appointment upstairs with the gynecologist yet? She'll be able to tell you if it's a UTI." She has her cell phone out, scrolling through it. "Nausea?" She asks. I nod. "Vomiting, yeah. Any irregular bowel movements? When's the last time you took a dump?"

"…What kind of question…" I sit up and grab her phone off her. "Steph, you're a DOCTOR. Are you really punching my symptoms into a website?! You went to med school!" I playfully push her and laugh. "I have an appointment with the lady doctor tomorrow to get another method of birth control, I'll talk to her then." _Should I tell her? I haven't told anyone. I think she'll find it funny… _"…Wait, I have something to tell you…"

"Does it relate to you answering my question about your bowel movements?"

"…Kind of." I push my bangs out of my face, still laughing. That ever happen to you? When you have something really funny to tell your friend but you can't stop laughing long enough to get it out? "So…So…" I try so hard to stop laughing but I can't. "Okay so…me and Alex were having sex a few nights ago… I told you about that." I purse my lips together but laughter still spills out. "Okay, so… I actually have been kind of constipated lately. Just a little bit though, nothing serious. But I really had to pee before we started really going at it so I ran to the bathroom and peed and while I was in there, I felt like I had to… poop, you know? But nothing came out. So I went back to him and we started where we left off and I was on top. But Steph… I was…" I cover my face, hysterically laughing so hard. "I was fucking my boyfriend and I had to stop because I had to poop so bad… right in the middle of it. I didn't tell him, but…" She's laughing just as hard as I am. "I was just like… Alex… I'll be back. I was on top and I was like… I was really putting in work but all of a sudden, I was just like BAM. So I was like… I dunno, I told him I'd be back. I felt so bad because I left him all hard and stuff and I was in the bathroom for a while because I actually did go poop. But I couldn't go back smelling like crap so I had to wash up a little bit down there. It was so…"

"That's blackmail right there." She puts her head on my shoulder, dying of laughter. "If you ever piss me off, I'm using that against you. I'll be like 'Hey Alex! Remember that time Jo was riding you and she stopped? Yeah, she had to poop that's why she stopped!"

"Steph I will kill you!"

"Wait, was this before or after he ate you out?"

"AFTER! Oh god, I knew I shouldn't have told you." I put my hands over my face out of embarrassment. "You just asked me if I've taken a dump lately and that's what my mind went back to. I don't know… don't ever mention this again. I'll murder your ass. You mention this to anyone, I'll… I'll…" _Oooh, I know what'll torture her. _"I'll fuck your brother. I will go to Olympia and have sex with your brother. And I'll make it SO good that YOU'LL never hear the end of it. I'll make it so good that you'll be hearing about it for the next twenty years. Fuck with me."

"…Okay I swear I won't say anything."

"I thought so." I stand up and take the urine-christened pregnancy test out of my pocket. I shove it in my locker to wait until the end of the day to throw it away just to be sure that there's a lot of garbage in the locker room trashcan to cover it up with. "Come on. Let's get back to the Genome Lab before Dr. Bailey beats the hell out of both of us for being late."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"After we separate the main point of attachment, Dr. Sloan and Dr. Avery will work together to sew his lips back together, all the while Dr. Karev and I monitor little Andrew's vitals." For the billionth time since they found out their kid was strong enough to get the surgery, the parents asked Arizona to walk through the procedure. It's nice that they're worried and all but we've spent the last week telling them that clef-palate revision surgery is one of the least-risky procedures we could do on babies. The chance of complication is very minimal. "Baby Andrew is in very good hands, Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap. The entire procedure will take about five hours and if we take him back now, we can have him done and back in your arms by 6:30 this evening."

"You mentioned that his mouth will be stitched and patched up for a while… how will he be able to eat if his mouth is out of commission?" The father is the one that's the most worried which is fairly unusual. We usually get the most questions from the mothers. "You said something about a feeding tube but my wife's been nursing him. Won't it cause problems if he can't have breastmilk?"

"If your wife has pumped some milk for your son, we can give him breastmilk through his feeding tube, no problem." Ever the problem solver, Arizona pats the man on his back. I don't know where she learned this, but Arizona has this talent where she can make the scariest of situations sound so minor and relaxed. It's a gift really and while I've been learning the most I could possibly learn from her, I haven't mastered that technique just yet. "Why don't you two come with Dr. Sloan and I to sign some papers while Dr. Avery and Dr. Karev prep little Andrew for his surgery?" The parents follow Robbins and Sloan outside and leave me and Jackson alone with the kid. Luckily for us, the kid is sleeping and very peaceful.

"I didn't realize how crazy families are about anti-formula. It's weird, eh?" Jackson picks up the kid's chart and starts punching numbers from his vitals into it. "Maybe I'm the weirdo, but I don't think I'd care what you feed my kid as long as you fix his face and make sure he's healthy."

"Some couples are worse than others. Some aren't that overbearing." I gently pull out the kid's IV to give his vein a rest until we put the one we're going to use for surgery in. "How about Kepner? She plan on nursing the kid or is that still up for debate?"

"A lot of things are still up for debate with us." He sounds a little annoyed but I can tell he's not annoyed with me but annoyed with the situation. It's a guy thing. "The only thing that we've agreed on without a debate is the fact that we both want our kid to be nursed, so…" He clears his throat. "But you know April… even though I didn't dispute it, she still had to present me with a list of the benefits of breastmilk."

"Aren't you glad that you got someone like her though? You could've knocked up one that doesn't care. You could've gotten one that does everything wrong. I see a lot of kids that struggle daily all because their mom didn't give a shit enough to stop drinking or smoking or partying. At least Kepner cares… Even if it is a little annoying and over protective."

"I guess you're right about that. I think April feels like I don't get to make decisions when it comes to our kid, you know?" He finishes up with the charting and starts to help me prep the baby for surgery. "I think she feels like since she had that good, wholesome, family upbringing that she knows more. And maybe she's right. The only thing my dad ever taught me how to do was run away when things got tough."

"That doesn't mean you're gonna be the same kind of dad though, dude." Me and Avery aren't the best of friends but it's always nice because when we talk to each other, we have deep, meaningful conversations. Mere and Cristina and Jo are all three my best friends, but Jackson is good for male company. I can talk to him about guy things and he understands. "You should be glad that you're getting the opportunity to do better. You had a crappy dad, now you can be a great dad. It doesn't mean that you have to make all of his mistakes, you know?" I push a circular sticker on the baby's heel to check his pulse and make sure it's strong. "If everyone as destined to fall in the same footsteps as their folks, I would've been a junkie living on the streets by now."

It sucks that I might not ever be able to be a dad. I really do love Jo and I have noticed that she's made me so much happier than I ever thought I could be. I don't plan on ever breaking up with her. I think she's it for me. I think she's my soulmate and all that good stuff and I never want to lose her so if she never changes her mind about kids, I guess I'll deal with never having kids. She means more to me than kids, honestly. But having kids has always been a goal of mine, you know? I'm not fortunate enough to have family so I always figured that I'd start one when the time was right. And Jo never wants kids. I guess I can just hope that she changes her mind but if she never does, it'll be a bummer but it's something I'll deal with. Hopefully she'll change her mind eventually though.

"Well that's easy for you to say. You pretty much have the dad thing on lock." He jots down the pulse when it pops up on the monitor screen. "You're a pediatrician… it'll be pretty much second nature for you to know how to keep your kid happy and healthy. Only thing I'll be good for is if my kid needs to hide an embarrassing scar or whatever."

"You make it sound harder than it is." I take the circle off the baby's heel and throw it away. "Everything your dad didn't do for you? Do it for your kid. And at least you have your mom to call up and ask for help. And the positive is that you _do _have Kepner and she _did _grow up with a good family. It won't be as hard as you think."

"Wow." He stops charting and tilts his head while he's looking at me. "I don't think I've met the girl everyone's talking about, but remind me to scope her out someday. She must be pretty damn good to turn you into someone so positive. What'd you say her name was again? Julie?"

"Screw you." I mumble under my breath, joking. "You people act like I'm incapable of any other emotion than cynicism. I can be positive." The baby's all prepped and ready to go for his surgery. "And her name's Jo. She is pretty awesome, I won't lie."

"I don't think I've ever seen her before. Sloan doesn't like to have interns so he never requests them; I don't know many of the newbies around here." He leans against the countertop of the sink in the prep room and wrinkles his brow like he always does when he's thinking. "Wait… is she the brunette?" I nod my head. "Brunette… she's leggy… kind of skinny? Sits by the cappuccino machine in the cafeteria?"

"Yep."

"…Hot." He nods as if he's giving me his seal of approval. "She's hot. Kinda looks like she belongs in a magazine somewhere, not here practicing medicine."

"I know, doesn't she?" I can't help but smile when I think about her. "She's smart too. Went to Princeton _and _Harvard. She's so smart and so independent. Did I mention how beautiful she is?" I like when people compliment Jo. Whenever I tell them that she's my girl and they're all like "wow, she's pretty" I love that. Of course I know that she's pretty and I know that I'm lucky to have her but it's always a sense of pride whenever someone says it to me. I know my girl is beautiful and I don't need anyone to tell me that but it's nice when other people say it because I know that I have her and she's mine. I like bragging about her too. Most people don't get girls like Jo. Nope. My girl is smart and she's beautiful and she's all mine.

I realize that I can't go for too long without talking to her before I start to miss her.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"I find General to be so relaxing." Steph sighs as if she just got done with a relaxing day at the spa and not spending hours synthesizing a gene. I think she's weird. General is so boring. You do the same thing over and over and over again and hope for different results. General is boring as hell. "I thought Cardio was my calling but I'm pretty sure it's General." She pulls open the door to the locker room and holds it for me. We're the only two in the locker room right now because Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grey let us go early. Our shift isn't over for another half hour but we got the entire synthesis done when we stopped taking turns and started to work together. They didn't have any scut for us to do so they let us go. "Tell me this isn't the most relaxed you've been in a while."

"…I kind of like Ortho with Dr. Torres." I go straight to my locker and open it up. "I find Ortho stress-relieving. Like… if you're mad, just break a bone. It's great. And things are so complicated. Like… some breaks don't even need casted but other breaks need screws and surgery. It's great." I take my blue jeans out of my locker and put them on the bench. "And Torres is amazing. She's so badass."

"You don't think Dr. Bailey is badass?" She starts putting on her clothes as well.

"I didn't say that. I just don't think General is for me. I think it's boring. There's only but so much you can do with General. But with Ortho, you can see an arm, a leg, a toe, a finger, a pelvis, a rib… 206 bones, Steph… and Torres takes care of all of them. Ortho is great." I pull my jeans up and button them around my waist. I reach back inside my locker and grab my sweater.

"I thought you were all over Peds?"

"Eh… Peds gets depressing after you watch babies die." I put my sweater on and go back to my locker. When I yank my boots out of it, a pair of my clean scrubs and my cell phone and a bunch of other things falls down on the floor. "Shit." I mumble to myself, most concerned about my phone. I kneel down to the mess I made and examine my phone. It's okay. It's not nicked or scratched or cracked, it's just fine. "Plus, my boyfriend's already a pediatrician…what do I have to be one too for?" I gather up everything that fell from my locker and shove it back inside. Something falls down again though. _Oh…I forgot about this thing. Lemme throw it out. _I pick up the pregnancy test that just fell onto the floor and take it over to the trashcan.

You ever wonder how pregnancy tests work? It seems like all you do is pee on the end of it and it tells you in an instant if you're knocked up or not. Isn't that weird? I know that inside the sensor, there are things that can detect hormones and that's how they determine if you're pregnant or not, but isn't that strange how a little stick can tell you that? I stare at the little box that displayed my negative result from this morning and just think about how cool it is that something like a stick can deliver life changing news. Technology is amazing, isn't it? Before you know it, someone's gonna make an app that you can download on your phone where you piss on the screen of your phone and it'll tell you.

"…Hey Steph…" I call her name. _Didn't she say that two vertical lines meant positive? And I guess one vertical line means negative? Or… _Because the more I look at the grey box to the test I pissed on a few hours ago, the more I see one very dark vertical line and another very, very, very faint, barely there vertical line. I hold it up to my face and squint my eyes to make it clearer. There are definitely two lines in this box. One of them is faint while the other one is very dark and prominent, but it's there. "…Nevermind." I slide the test into the butt pocket of my jeans. I'm sweating and my heart is beating entirely too fast. No, I'm not pregnant. This test is cheap and it's bullshit. There was one line this morning and now there's two? It must've malfunctioned sitting in my locker for hours. I'm not pregnant.

"You okay?" Steph pokes her head around the corner of the lockers and asks me.

"…I'm fine." I'm really not fine. I keep my back turned to her so she can't tell that a couple tears just fell out of my eyes. _Calm down, okay? Calm down. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. The gynecologist will tell me then if I have a reason to worry. Calm down. It's just a shitty over the counter pregnancy test. It's not 100% certain. Calm down. _I can't get the image of the two little lines, positive lines, out of my head. I'm not fine. Oh my god, I'm gonna be sick. I'm not pregnant. I'm not. With my back still turned to Steph, I push my entire left hand really hard to my stomach. There's nothing in there. I don't know why I'm freaking out.

I'll know for sure tomorrow. No reason to freak out just yet.


	33. The Risk

I sit on the soft purple quilt lying on my bed, my chin resting in the palm of my hand. Even though I have a towel wrapped around my head, my hair is still dripping freezing cold water down my back. I think I missed putting a stand of it up inside the towel but I really don't care enough to fix it. The persistent digging of my elbow is starting to make me lose feeling in my knee but again, it's just something I don't care enough to fix right now. I really can't even move. I feel like my body's been turned to stone and moving is a thing of the past. Even in the back of my head I know that if I don't get my ass up and moving within the next five minutes I'm gonna be late, I just don't care. I don't want to go anyway so would it really bother me to be late?

A tear rolls off my cheek and splashes down on the part of my knee that my towel isn't covering. I didn't sleep last night which is pretty ironic because I've never in my life been as tired as I've been within the last two weeks. I'm always tired, never hungry. That's consistently been my mood for a very long time. But I didn't sleep last night and right after my doctor's appointment, I have to go to work. I spent an hour talking to Alex on the phone last night because I couldn't sleep and he ended up falling asleep on me. He was tired though because he sat through what was supposed to be a five hour cleft-palate revision surgery that ended up turning into a seven hour surgery because the kid bled out on the table and it took a while for him and Dr. Robbins to fix it. He fell asleep on me while we were on the phone and I rolled over to try and get some sleep myself but I just couldn't. It was nagging me all night to the point where I literally lost sleep over it.

So even though it was 12:30 at night, I thought that maybe—just maybe, if I did it again and it looked different, I could put my mind at ease. I didn't wake Steph because she was deeply asleep, so I just grabbed her keys and took her car. I ran across town to the Walmart and grabbed another one; the cheapest one I could find was fourteen bucks. I paid for it and all of that and I went back home and I squeezed out enough pee to cover the end of the sensor and by that point, I already felt better. I just felt better knowing that I took one that I bought myself, not a generic one that Steph stole from OB. I sat it on the counter of the bathroom and I went to the kitchen to grab a slice of the pizza Steph made earlier yesterday evening for dinner and took a bite because what do you know? My appetite came back. I took a couple bites before I got tired of it and threw the rest in the trashcan. I won't lie, I was just trying to distract myself by eating and I ended up making myself sick. The pizza really didn't agree with my stomach but whatever. And I went back to the bathroom to make sure I wouldn't forget about the test. When I picked it up, it became clear to me that I wasn't gonna sleep at all last night. Sleep stopped being an option when I saw the two very visible, very prominent parallel lines. I even read the directions five hundred or so times to make sure I was reading the test right but there was no escaping it.

Now I'm sitting here soaking wet on the edge of my bed at 7:00 in the morning for an appointment that I have at 7:30, just for the doctor to tell me what I already know. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe everything is wrong. Maybe this is seriously just a cruel, sick joke that someone's playing on me and everything is a lie. That's not much to ask for, is it? Please just be wrong. Just be wrong. Everything has to be wrong. I clutch my towel to my body and go over to my underwear drawer. I rummage through it for a pair of comfortable panties and grab a bra out of it too. I drop my towel and slowly put on my undergarments. I slide on a pair of yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt to make sure I'm comfortable. I'm not sure what the doctor's gonna do to me today but whatever it is, I'm sure I'll want to be comfortable. I pull on a pair of socks and toss my hair up into a high, damp bun. I don't even believe in God but I think I'm praying right now. Praying that this is all just one big mistake and none of this is for real.

I shut my bedroom door behind myself and grab a jacket to put on. I grab Steph's keys off the kitchen table. She left me her car because she knew that I have an appointment this morning. She just hitched a ride with Leah. I sink my hands into the pockets of the jacket I just threw on and walk outside to the car. I've never been this scared in my life and that's saying a lot. I've been scared more than I care to admit. I used to be scared when junkies would beat on my windshield in the middle of the night when I was asleep in my car. I was scared whenever that linebacker tried to have his way with me back in college. But the kind of fear I'm feeling right now is different. I've NEVER felt fear like this in my life and I'm barely breathing. I'm so scared.

**X X X **

"What brings you back so soon?" The chubby redheaded doctor that I saw the last time I was here is so cheerful that it's hard for me to even want to be upset anymore. I already made a vow to myself that I'm not gonna cry while I'm in here. If I get horrible news today, I'm gonna hold back my tears until I at least get in the car. I'm not gonna cry in here, even if I want to. "Is there a problem with the Mirena or just a question you have?" She shuts and locks the door to the room we're in—the same room I was in last time. I don't know why I'm here anymore. I initially made this appointment because the Mirena fell out again but is it this point where I tell her that I took two pregnancy tests and they both came back positive? I just don't know. I don't know what I'm doing here.

"The um…" My voice cracks, threatening to break the vow I made to myself about not crying. I take a moment to regroup, steady myself and start talking again. "It fell out again. So I want to see about another option. Maybe the pill or the shot." I really need to cry. But I'm not gonna. Be strong. "But um… I took… I took two home pregnancy tests just to be safe and they both came back positive. So I guess I'm here to see if that's true…"

"What prompted you to take a pregnancy test in the first place, hon?" She goes over to a cupboard and grabs one of those cups that you pee inside of. She writes my initials on the outside of the cup. "Did you just take it on a whim or was there a reason you felt the need to take it?"

"I've been sick."

"Sick as in…"

"I've been nauseous for about a week straight and really tired… things like that. My friend suggested that I should take one just to be safe and I did but it came back a little faint so I bought another one and it was really clear." She holds out the cup to me and I take it.

"So the IUD isn't in anymore?" I shake my head. "You're sure?" I nod my head. "You're smart to come get it checked out but sometimes if you have a viral infection such as a UTI or the stomach flu, that can give off a false positive on a pregnancy test. It's rare but I've seen it happen. So I wouldn't worry just yet if I were you." I nod, feeling relief flood my body but not enough relief. "Okay so you're gonna go to the bathroom and do your business in the cup. I'll check the sample for you myself and I'll have your results back soon enough. When you're finished in the restroom, just come back into this room here. If I get a negative result, I'll come back and we can discuss more options of birth control for you since the IUD doesn't seem to be holding up any longer." She opens up the door and I hop down off the table with the pee cup in my hand. "And if I get a positive result, I'll set you up for an appointment with an obstetrician. Sound good?" _Not really… _I nod my head anyway. "Bathroom's the last door on your left honey."

"Thank you." I mutter and go straight to the restroom. I'm so scared right now. I honestly feel like I'm in a horror movie. I'm scared and I'm alone and I'm just praying that his whole thing is a big, huge mistake. I don't want a baby. I can't be pregnant. I shut the bathroom door behind myself and go straight over to the toilet. I twist the cap off the empty cup and put it on the sink. I pull my yoga pants down around my ankles, grab the cup and hold it up to the part of my crotch where my pee will come out. I'm so tired of peeing for a lifetime. I manage to get some out and I put the now filled up cup back on the sink while I wipe. I put the cap back on the cup, put the cup inside the little door thing hanging on the wall and wash my hands.

Like she told me to, I go back to the exam room once I'm done in the bathroom. Seriously, what do I do? I can't raise a baby. I'll be such a horrible mother and the poor child will grow up so messed up with me as a mother. See, this is another reason I don't believe in God because what kind of GOD would give me of ALL people in the world a baby? An innocent little baby that doesn't deserve to have a fucked up a mother. I don't deserve a baby and a baby sure as hell doesn't deserve me. I fear for this child's next eighteen years. I'm gonna be such a bad mother. I don't even feed myself, how the hell am I gonna feed a baby?! And Alex…

Oh god, Alex. He said himself that he doesn't want a baby right now. He said himself that he's in a bad place with his career to have a child right now. And I just got him. I just got him… and this baby is gonna tear us apart. Neither one of us are ready for a baby. We JUST got together. We don't even know if we're gonna last yet and a baby's in the mix?

And I'm just an intern! I don't make enough money to have a baby! I don't want one. Can you imagine what it'd be like for my kid to grow up knowing that I never wanted it? I don't want it. …Maybe I can miscarry. Maybe if I like… drink enough booze or throw myself down a flight of steps, I'll miscarry. Or what if I get like Shane or someone to punch me in the stomach? Maybe that'll work. Oh wait, I read somewhere that if you drink castor oil it could make you miscarry. Maybe I'll guzzle a whole body of the shit. I gotta get rid of this baby because I CAN'T have it. I can't have a kid. Do you hear me? I CAN'T HAVE A BABY. Please GOD don't let me be pregnant. I did everything right. I was on my birth control, I had safe sex… I wasn't trying to… I did EVERYTHING right. I can't be pregnant. This isn't fair. How is it that people try and try and try but they still can't get pregnant? Then there's me… I tried so hard NOT to and I might have? I'm so…. scared.

There's a knock on the door of the room I'm in and I perk up just to seem like I'm strong enough to handle all of this on my own…but I'm not. My redheaded doctor opens the door and comes in. She has a purple pamphlet and a thick stack of papers in her hand. "So…" She shuts the door behind herself and comes over to me with the papers and the pamphlet. "I used the most accurate test I could possibly give you… one that measures hCG levels in your urine. hCG is a hormone that all women produce but in pregnant women, the levels tend to elevate to a really high level and that's how we get accurate results for pregnancy." I went to medical school, I'm not an imbecile, you're talking to a future surgeon, I KNOW what hCG is. _Just tell me… _"This right here?" She shows me the papers and points to a thick horizontal line. "This is baseline for where your hCG levels should be at twenty eight years old." She moves her finger so a thinner line that's WAY above the baseline. "This right here is where your levels are at. You're way above that baseline so that's a positive result and judging by the midrange of where your levels are at, I'd say you're about four or five weeks along."

_Oh my god, no… This is not possible, this is not happening… NO. _I stop looking at the paper she showed me and look away from her. I told myself I wouldn't cry but I think I lied. "…I can put you in for an appointment with one of our obstetricians…" I can tell by the tone of her voice that she's trying to comfort me. There is no comforting me. "Would you like to schedule your first prenatal appointment for today, if we have anything available?" I just nod my head. I mean, I guess? I might as well get it over with, right? I have a lot of questions that I doubt this woman can answer. She's just a gynecologist. "I know a lot of women who like to do it that way… get it out of the way." I bring my thumb up to my mouth and chew on my thumbnail. "I'm gonna see if I can set you up with Dr. Maxwell. She's only just a little bit older than you and I think the two of you will click pretty well. I'll see if she has anything booked for this afternoon." I nod again. "I'll be right back." Nod.

She shuts the door behind herself when she leaves and my eyes start stinging pretty bad. "What did I do?" I don't mean to whisper but it's like I can't find my voice inside my body. Like it left my throat and it's somewhere inside my body and I can't locate it. I cover one hand over my mouth because I'm crying pretty loud and I don't want anyone else to hear that. How does this even HAPPEN? I tried so hard… I tried so hard! I bury my face inside my shirt and sniff. Five weeks? Am I hallucinating or did she really say FIVE weeks? Does that mean that I'm pregnant to Jason? Five weeks… I… I haven't… I didn't even have sex five weeks ago! Oh god.

I'm not even scared anymore. I'm TERRIFIED. What happens now? I get an abortion now, don't I? Because there's no way in hell I'm having a kid. I'm not pregnant. I can't be. I CAN'T be pregnant. What do I do? I put my hands over my face and take a deep breath. "Fuck…" I really just don't know what I should do. I don't know what I'm going do now. I can't be somebody's mother. I just can't. I know myself and I know what I can handle and I know that I can't handle a BABY. Somebody's joking, right? Somebody's got to be playing a cruel, sick, disgusting joke on me because I'm NOT having a baby. How is it that I tried so hard to keep this from happening, yet it did? There's no way… there's no way…

There's NO way.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Edwards, wait up." I just finished morning rounds and I have a little spare time, so I thought that I'd go visit Jo and see what she's up to but she's not here. She never punched in for her shift this morning. Did she oversleep? "What's up with Jo? She call off?" Since she's not here, I toss the apple danish I snuck out of the residents' lounge for her. I know she hasn't been eating much lately so I thought that maybe a danish would appease her. Something sweet, flaky and creamy? Yeah I thought that might've gotten her to eat. But she's not even here and I don't like apple-flavored things so I throw it away. Stephanie turns around and faces me when I catch her walking towards the NICU. She's on Arizona's service today. "Was she sick this morning?"

"No, she's coming in late. Something about a doctor's appointment at 7:30." Can I be frankly honest for a second? I'm a little bit jealous of Edwards. Just over the fact that she gets to see my Jo every single day because she lives with her. She gets to be there when she wakes up, she gets to be there when she falls asleep. She's there when Jo talks, walks, sneezes, uses the bathroom, watches TV, showers…everything. I kind of wish I could be there for everything if that makes any sense at all. "We think she has a UTI… cause that would make sense, wouldn't it?" I shrug. I do like Edwards though. I like the fact that she's Jo's best friend. She seems sensible, the kind of girl that'd keep Jo's head on straight.

"Yeah I guess." I mumble. "She eat something last night?"

"Nope."

"Did she go see a doctor here? You know if her appointment was here or somewhere else?"

"It's here… up on the third floor, I think."

_The third floor? Um_… "Should I go?"

She shakes her head. "…There's something about vaginas, doctors and boyfriends that don't mesh well."

"…Right. Thanks." I guess she's right about that. Maybe it would be a little bit weird if I just showed up at her lady doctor appointment. If it were any other doctor's appointment, I'd totally go up there with her. But she's at the lady doctor so I'll wait and ask her about it later. Glad I asked Edwards before I just went up there.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I think I made a mistake. I think I really messed up bad. I really don't want to be here. I need at least a few days before I do this. I just don't want to do this anymore. I don't know why I agreed to do this on the same day but I really wish I hadn't. I have half a mind to get up and bolt out of this room but everyone's done special things for me all because I work here and it'd be rude for me to just up and leave. I think I'm dying though. I literally can't breathe, my throat is closing up and I can't stop shaking. I don't want to know anything about this thing inside of me today. I'd rather just go home and sleep this off. I should've told the redheaded doctor that I didn't want to see the obstetrician today. I should've told her that I'd call in and schedule an appointment to see her in a couple days. Deep down I know that if I didn't take the appointment today, I'd never come back. Maybe that's the reason I took the appointment today anyway. Regardless, I made a mistake because I'm clearly not emotionally stable enough to deal with this today. I'm scared. I don't know what's gonna happen.

I look down at the pair of pink socks I stuck on my feet this morning and wiggle my toes. I really wish I wasn't alone. I don't want Alex to be here because I know at this point that I'm not gonna keep this kid and I don't want Steph to be here to taunt me and say "I told you so", but I really wish I wasn't alone. I'm so scared and I'm usually really good with comforting myself out of scary situations like this but I just can't do it this time around. My entire body is shutting down and I feel it. My mind isn't even thinking about anything besides the fact that I'm scared, my hands won't stop shaking long enough to wipe away my tears and my eyes won't stop crying long enough to STOP the tears.

Since my eyes have been fixated on the white tile floor for the last five or ten minutes, I shift them up and look directly across the room from me. The sink is yellow…a pretty yellow, faint and bright but pastel. Hanging above the sink is a poster that shows the stages of pregnancy. I find it weird how I was just down the hall at the gynecologist, where there were a bunch of posters talking about vaginas but I walked down a small hallway and into a door and I'm in a room full of baby posters now. Next to the pregnancy poster is a framed medical license that's addressed to a "Cynthia Maxwell" presented from Baskerville Medical School. I bring my hand up and wipe my cheek free of tears that I know are about to slide out my eyes all over again. The paper gown I have over my body crinkles with my movements.

I'm supposed to be filling out this stack of papers the lady that escorted me back into this room gave me. The clipboard is sitting along with a pen on my lap but I can't even remember how to write. I've been alone in this room with these papers for a while now and so far, all I've got is that my name is Josephine Wilson. My birthday is May 5, 1986. I'm a female and my address is 712 Lakeshore Drive, Apartment #1. I can't write anything else down without my hands shaking enough to make the writing illegible. A tear falls off my chin and lands down on my arm. I sniff and wipe the wet spot off just as there's a soft knock on the door. I look over at the door as a woman walks through it. She's taller with long, sleek blonde hair, glasses and grey eyes. Aside from the glasses, she kind of reminds me of Leah. She looks all happy and cheerful and very young. "Hello!" Her voice is very pitchy and sweet. "I'm Dr. Maxwell, it's nice to meet you!" She holds her hand out to me.

I'm scared out of my wits but I'm not rude. I grab ahold of her hand and shake it. "J…Jo Wilson." I introduce myself with a very shaky voice. My fingers tremble so badly when I shake her hand that I let it go and bawl my hand up into a fist to try and get it to stop. She can tell that I'm really shaken up so she gently grabs the clipboard of incomplete papers off my lap and puts it on the counter next to the sink. She goes over and starts to wash her hands. I need to calm down but I seriously can't. I'm way too freaked out to calm down right now.

"I took a look at all the paperwork the gynecologist faxed over to me and I see that you had two IUDs implanted within the last month that didn't stick." She dries her hands with paper towels and walks over to me. She stands next to me with a really easy, comforting look on her face. "Since this is your first prenatal visit, this will be our longest visit together. I just wanna get to know you and your health history to make sure your baby will be okay. Now I do have one question…" I look at her to let her know I'm listening. "Are you looking to terminate?" I shake my head. I swear I thought I might've considered it back in the gynecologists' office but when I sat here and thought about it, the only thing that's worse than me actually having a kid is knowing that I intentionally killed it. So no, I won't abort it. I think somehow I'm hoping I'll miscarry, which is sick but it's the god-honest truth. "Great." She smiles at me and her teeth are perfect. "We're gonna take care of all the real easy, boring stuff right now, which basically means I'm gonna start you off with some questions." She puts her stethoscope in her ears and pushes the flat part to my chest. "So your periods… up until this point, are they regular?" I nod my head. "And how long do they typically last for you?"

"…Three days… maybe four… I don't know anymore." I sniff hard and try my best to suck up all the tears.

She puts her stethoscope back around her neck and grabs the clipboard of papers I didn't fill out. "And can you tell me the first day of your last period?" I shake my head. I can't tell her. Obviously what I THOUGHT was my period clearly wasn't it so since that wasn't it, I don't know when my last fucking period was. "Do you have a rough estimate, sweetie?" I shake my head again. Maybe I should explain… after all, she's here to help me, isn't she?

"…I had a period two weeks ago." I wipe away a tear. "Or I thought it was my period. But it wasn't, I guess. I just…" I take a deep breath because I feel myself getting ready to really lose it. "I had sex with my boyfriend two…no three Sundays ago. I had sex with him three Sundays ago and the Monday after that, I was at work and I went to the bathroom and my IUD fell out but I started bleeding after that so I just thought… I thought that was it." I literally can't stop crying. "Then I bled a little bit a couple days ago…like on Tuesday… and I thought that I was cycling again but…"

"So you bled twice?" She's scribbling things down in the margins of the papers I didn't fill out. "Well judging by your hCg levels, I'm gonna say that you're about four or five weeks along. I'll be able to tell for sure once I examine you closer." She puts the pen down and puts her hand on my back. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions and I think I have the answers for you." I nod slowly. "So the first time your IUD fell out was after sex, right?" I nod. "And did your boyfriend ejaculate inside you during that?" I mumble a "yes" and sniff. "First of all, in my professional opinion, I don't recommend ANYONE to get an IUD as a method of birth control. The IUD is the most dangerous form of birth control and you should be glad that yours came out correctly. I've seen IUDs migrate to other parts of some women that come in here and it can cause some serious problems."

"…Okay." I'm about to puke. I don't feel good.

"So what I'm thinking is that… the bleeding you experienced the first time was just a side effect of the IUD actually falling out. The IUD falling out is the reason you bled the first time around. The second time you bled which was what? A couple days ago? I'm almost certain that bleeding was just a little implantation bleeding. That's normal in early pregnancy and that happens when your egg is implanting to your uterus. Sometimes it causes bleeding and cramping and that's not abnormal." She's rubbing my back but I'm still not doing so good. I just can't believe this is happening to me. "So even though you can't tell me your last period, you were able to pinpoint the day you conceived which was three Sundays ago."

"…Oh." I bite my lip. "…Then how am I five weeks pregnant if… if I got pregnant three weeks ago?"

"Because we take your last period into account, honey." She's talking so nicely to me. "In all technicality, you are only three and a half weeks pregnant but when we calculate your due date, we're gonna count back about two weeks to take your last period into account. Got it?"

"…I got it." I find that if I talk I don't feel as sick, though. I do have a lot of questions to ask her. I still don't want a baby. I really, really don't want to be a mommy but I am a little relieved that it IS Alex's baby. It would be WAY too easy to hate this thing inside of me if it was Jason's baby. It's Alex's…so maybe I could learn to love it. "Are you gonna tell me my due date? And… tell me what I should…do?"

"That's the goal." She smiles at me and picks up the clipboard again. "Have you noticed any symptoms since your last estimated period? Any nausea, vomiting, fatigue, headaches…?"

"All of the above."

"Any STDs or STIs in your past?"

"No."

"Any gynecological problems?"

"No."

"Any previous pregnancies?"

"No."

"Chronic conditions that you suffer from?"

"No."

"Anxiety, depression, smoking, drinking, drug use? Anything that runs in your family?"

"…Um…depression, but no more than usual." I think I'm done crying so I wipe my face off. "I was homeless when I was sixteen so… I mean, yeah there was some depression there. So kind of depression… I was a foster kid so I don't really know about my parents…and I don't smoke or use drugs but I do drink…and I have drunken a couple beers lately… is that okay?"

"I'll monitor the baby to make sure there's nothing wrong from the alcohol use but usually, the babies are fine. I know mothers that have gone out partying on New Year's before they found out they were pregnant and their babies are okay. Babies are usually only affected by alcohol during pregnancy if the alcohol use is continuous." She writes something on the papers and keeps going with the questions. "Any allergies?"

"…I'm allergic to wool."

"That's a new one." She jots that down. "Past surgeries or hospitalizations?" I shake my head. "Any abuse? Domestic, sexual…anything?"

"…Both." I lick my lips. I really don't like to talk about this shit but I guess she wouldn't ask if she didn't have to know so… "I was raped when I was little…. And… my ex-boyfriend…he used to hit me."

"Your baby's father?"

"No…. no, no, no." I shake my head so fast. Alex would NEVER hit me. "My EX. We've been broken up for a while. He's not in the picture no more."

"That's great." She stops writing. "So I'm gonna do a couple blood tests throughout your pregnancy since you don't know much about your family. I would like to screen some of the baby's father's blood as well but there's no rush on that. That can happen whenever." I nod my head. I don't even want to think about telling Alex. I'm not ready. I'm not even ready to come to terms with the fact that I'm having a baby, let alone spring it on Alex. "You're not too far along so during your next visit I'll draw a little blood from you to test it." She goes over to the glove dispenser and grabs a pair. "I want to see you in three weeks. We don't usually schedule first prenatal appointments before eight weeks but I'm glad you expressed some concern enough to come see about it." She puts her gloves on. "So now I need you to lay back. I'll examine you, make sure everything's good enough to house your baby, run some tests to screen for cancers and stuff. Then I'll write you a script for prenatal vitamins, get you a due date and you can go on your way. Sound good?"

"Mhm." She makes it sound really good. I know somewhere within myself that I'm still absolutely terrified of having a baby that I don't want, but Dr. Maxwell has a way of making me feel okay. She makes me feel like everything's gonna be fine, even though I know it's not. Everything's not gonna be fine. I'm an intern. My intern schedule is so busy that I'll NEVER have time to take care of a baby. I don't make enough money to support a kid. My paychecks are SHIT. Alex said himself that he doesn't want a baby right now so… would he really make me raise it alone? I don't think he'd walk out, but I do have to account for that. What if I'm stuck with a baby that I hate? I'm not gonna be able to raise a baby, no matter what. I don't want to raise a baby. Nothing is okay about this. NOTHING is okay about an unplanned, unwanted, unloved infant.

"Oh yeah… you're definitely only about five weeks, no more than that. Maybe four and a half… you're still very early." It's amazing how she can tell all of that just by having her fingers inside of me. This is uncomfortable as fuck… She puts her hand on the outside of my crotch while the fingers on her other fingers are inside of me. She's gonna make me pee. "Everything feels right…." She takes her hands out and off of me and throws her gloves away. "Since you're still very early, I have to give you the whole, eat right, do right, stop drinking, no smoking lecture." I sit up and she goes over to a computer. "The risk of miscarriage is really high in these early weeks."

"What would make me miscarry?" Not that I'm gonna try to make myself have a miscarriage but… let's just say if I DID have one, I wouldn't be sad.

"Not eating right, risky behavior, falls…" She types something into a computer then looks up at me. "How does… May 1st of 2015 sound for a birthday?"

"Okay." I tuck my hair behind my ear. May 1st? That's a couple days before my birthday… Okay so, not eating right… risky behaviors will cause me to miscarry. So maybe I won't tell her that I haven't eaten in a few days….


	34. What Kind?

"How'd your doctor's appointment go?" I put my tray down on the table and sit across from her. I don't know why she opted to sit in the corner by the trashcans by herself but that's where she sat. She looks at me with a confused look on her face then turns around to see if anyone's staring at us. Of course people are staring at us, though. So far, they've only heard rumors about me dating the hot intern. Today is literally the first time we're in public together. She refused to have lunch we me, Mere and Cristina because she didn't want to be stared at. I know how much Jo doesn't like to be stared at over this but I'm at the point that I don't care anymore. She's my girlfriend now. Izzie's out and Jo's in. Who cares if anybody has something to say about it?

She has nothing on the tray in front of her except for a bag of unopened Cheetos. Some internal instinct told me that she wasn't going to buy any real food for lunch so I bought enough for the both of us. I think I might've figured out why she doesn't eat at work. I've been thinking and maybe she can't afford it? The food is pretty expensive here because it's not absolutely disgusting like hospital food usually is. As employees, we get a small discount but I remember when I was an intern how bad it'd break my pocket to eat every day. That doesn't really explain why she won't eat at home where food is readily available to her, but maybe that's why she won't eat here. "…Jo? You okay?" Her face is so pale that it's nearly transparent and she looks like she might pass out and fall out of her chair.

She closes her eyes and nods, like something in this room is unbearable to her. She says she's okay so I have to take her word for it…even if I don't really believe her. I open up the container to the chicken salad I bought from the lunch line and unwrap the turkey and cheese sandwich that went along with it. French fries don't really go with turkey sandwiches and chicken salads but they had the really good fries today and I couldn't resist, so I got a boat of them as well. I grab one of the plastic disposable trays I took from the line start to evenly distribute the food between the two of us. Without a word, she slides her hand across the table and grabs the bottle of water I brought over as opposed to the bottle of blue Gatorade I bought specifically for her. The water's supposed to be mine and the Gatorade is for her. She's been throwing up for a while and not eating so I got the Gatorade to replace the electrolytes she lost from puking.

"No, this is yours." I take the water away from her and slip her the Gatorade instead. "I want you to eat something today. Just a little bit." I slide the tray of sandwich, salad and fries I made over to her. She looks like she's about to bust out into tears. "Jo, what's wrong with you?" She just shakes her head. With a soft pretzel and a bottle of flavored water in tow, Stephanie comes over to the table we're sitting at and stands right next to her. "Beat it, Edwards." I stammer. I just want some alone time with my damn girlfriend and I know that's not too much to ask. When I tell Stephanie to get lost, Jo picks her head up and just gives her a look that I don't recognize. I've known Jo for nearly two months now and I've pretty much mastered what all her looks mean. I know if she bites her lip, it means she's nervous. If she rolls her eyes, she wants you to leave her alone. When she shifts her jaw to the side during a conversation, she's upset about something. The look that she just gave Stephanie is one that I don't recognize though.

"…You okay?" Edwards puts her hand on the table next to Jo, turns her back to me and keeps her full attention on her. "You need to talk?" She brushes the palm of her hand across Jo's forehead, moving her hair out of the way. Jo doesn't even respond to that. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's in shock. I can't figure out what she'd be in shock about but I swear that's how she's acting. Edwards reaches in her pocket and hands Jo two round blue pills. She untwists the cap off the Gatorade and holds it up to her mouth. Jo takes a sip to swallow the pills and returns back to her lifeless, emotionless state. "I'll see you at home." She brushes hair out of Jo's face again, gives me a look that lets me know she's every bit of concerned about my girlfriend as I am then walks away.

"Seriously Jo…what's going on?"

"Nothing. I have a headache." Her voice sounds like it's meant for tears to be falling from her eyes. She rubs her eyes with her hands and pushes her chair out just enough for her to put her head down on the table. She folds her arms and rests her face inside of them on the table.

"Okay." I reach across the table and brush some hair away from her ear. She has a little brown speck on the tip of her ear. I think it's cute how she has marks all over her body—even on her ears. Even though her face in buried in her arms and the only visible part of her skin is her ear, I can tell that her face is red underneath her arms. I can tell because the tip of her ear is so red that it looks like somebody colored on it with marker. I think she's crying. "…Did your appointment go well?" I don't know why, but my mind is immediately flying off in the direction that she's sick with something incurable. Maybe because I've been through this before so I'm immediately nervous, but that'd be just my luck wouldn't it? Just my luck to get a double dose of sick girls.

She nods her head quickly, slides herself back in by her legs and picks her head up. She wasn't crying but her face is really red. "Alex?" Her voice is clearly filled with nervousness. I lean forward without saying anything so she can feel free to tell me whatever it is she needs to tell me. I don't know if I'll be able to handle it if she throws a whole "I have cancer" thing on me. I don't know if I'm ready for that. But I don't want her to feel like she can't tell me anything because she literally can tell me ANYTHING. "I'm…" Her voice trails off and she stops talking. _She's what? _"…Having really bad cramps right now. I'm just not in the mood to talk…okay?"

"That's fine, babe." Is that it? She has cramps? That's what this whole thing is about? "We don't have to talk. I just want you to eat something… I'm worried about you."

"…I'll eat later. I'm just not in the mood to do anything but sit here."

"…Okay Jo. Fine. Don't eat. But I'm not gonna keep letting this slide. You're starving yourself…"

"I'm not starving." She sighs.

I feel like if I keep talking about this, it's going to turn into an argument because she's so adamant about NOT eating and it's starting to irritate me. I don't want this relationship to end up like the one me and Izzie had where we argued all the damn time so I'll let this argument just drop. "You coming over tonight? I work 'til 10 tonight but I'm off tomorrow so you can stay over."

"I can't." She slides her chair out again like she's ready to get up. She picks up the Gatorade and circles her finger around the cap. "I have to talk to Steph tonight." She dismisses me like it's nothing, like I didn't even ask her to come. I'm not real sure what's going on with her. Maybe she just doesn't want to stay the night tonight which is okay, she could just say so. She doesn't have to go and put forth all the extra effort to come up with some bullshit reason as to why she can't.

"If you don't wanna stay the night, that's fine. That's all you have to say." I lunge across the table and grab ahold of her wrist. "I was just lookin' forward to spending time with you tonight."

"Alex, I never said that I didn't want to stay the night with you. Of course I do. I just… have other obligations tonight." She snatches away from me. "And I don't really need you to put me on a guilt trip about it."

"I'm not trying to guilt you into anything. If you feel guilty, that's on you." Her eyes widen then roll, her face flushes bright red. I remember this look. This is the kind of look she used to give me back when she hated me. I don't like her looking at me like that. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. "What's so important that you can't talk to her about it when you get off then come spend time with me afterwards?"

"…Trust me Alex, it's really important." She looks at me with apologetic eyes. "It's really important…okay?"

"Too important that you can't tell me?" I fold my hands and just look at her.

"…I will tell you. Just not right now." She looks so nervous. "Please believe that you'll know sooner or later…"

"What's it about?"

"None of your business."

"Are you breaking up with me or something?"

"No."

"What's it about, Jo?"

"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, GOD." She slides out of her chair and walks away from the table. When she storms past me, I grab onto her wrist again so she can't walk any further. "Get off me Alex. You're pissing me off so bad right now." She tries to pull away from me but I tighten my grip around her wrist. "Stop it!"

"No…come here." I pull her hard towards me. "Sit down. I'm not letting you walk away all pissy and mad. Last time I let you walk away mad at me, I scared myself to death thinking about where you could be because I couldn't find you." She's not even looking at me. She's looking around at all the eyes staring at us. The only reason that today is the first time we sat together in the cafeteria is because she doesn't like all the stares she gets for dating the previously engaged resident while she's just an intern. She doesn't like being the topic of stares and since we were just arguing quite loudly, more than half the cafeteria is staring at us. "…Fuck them." I pull on her arm to draw her attention to me instead of the others. "Look at me." She's still looking around. "Jo. Look at me." Reluctantly, her eyes draw down to mine. "Fuck them. Let them stare. You're mine and there's nothing that staring is gonna do about it." It bugs me that she cares if they stare but it bugs me even more that they DO stare. "Now sit down…" I pull her by her arms until she catches the drift that I want her to sit on my lap. She does but she doesn't seem enthusiastic about it. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong!" She doesn't exactly raise her voice; she just says it so she can get the point across to me. "I just can't come over tonight…maybe tomorrow morning or something but definitely not tonight." She tucks her hair behind her ear. I wrap my arms around her waist while she's sitting on me and put my head in the middle of her back. "…Steph's going through something. She's having trouble with something and she needs my help with it. If I… if she…" She clears her throat. "If she tells me it's okay, I'll tell you what it's about soon. I just don't think you need to…know right away."

"Does it involve you?" Since my arms are around her waist, I slide my hands up and rest them flat against her stomach. "Whatever you have to talk to her about, I mean. Does it involve you in some way?"

She reaches down and makes me move my hands away from her stomach. "Kind of..." She sighs again, her voice sounding like her happiness has been deflated. "Just know that it's of the utmost importance. It's really important…"

"Promise you'll tell me?"

"…Yeah, eventually."

**X X X **

"You did a really nice job… hiding the scar in the facial plane, I mean." Using a cotton swab, I gently smear some antibiotic ointment on the stitches of the cleft-palate baby we fixed yesterday night. The little guy's doing really well for the complication we had during his surgery last night. "Kid's gonna live a pretty good life, looks like."

"Sloan taught me. It's a pretty simple fix, actually." Avery mutters, busily typing things into a computer in the corner of the room. "Some plastic surgeons will make the mistake of cutting directly at the nose instead of going around… that makes for a pretty nasty scar." I'm not sure if he's talking to me or himself. I toss the cotton swab away and grab some dressing to redress the baby's face so his incision will heal properly. "I guess I'm just glad that the kid will be able to go to kindergarten someday without being made fun of."

"I guess plastics is actually important…" It's fun to bust Avery's balls sometimes about the fact that he's a plastics resident. Honestly, I have respect for all specialties. I don't actually think some specialties are bitch-baby specialties. I do think some are harder than others of course, but I really don't disrespect any specialty. It's just fun to poke fun of him over it. "You know, when you're not sucking fat off someone's ass or putting Jell-O in a pair of A-cup boobs to make them Ds."

"Told you plastics is more than just face lifts, ass-implants and liposuction." He finishes typing whatever he was typing into the computer and comes over to the baby's cradle to check the way I dressed his incision. "Sometimes we actually get to change a person's life…" The baby stirs whenever Jackson touches the dressing to check how tight it's on there. "…But I guess you wouldn't know that since you babysit all day."

"Screw you." I clean up all the paper and old dressings so I can get the baby settled for the night until rounds tomorrow morning. His parents should be back from the cafeteria any minute and Robbins promised them that they could hold him tonight. "You just wait. In what… four more months? You'll be babysitting too. You just wait. My job will be your LIFE in a few months. And you won't be getting paid to do it."

"Guess I should learn how to change a crappy diaper then…" He helps me out with cleaning up.

"You probably should." I shrug and hook the baby up to some monitors.

"You hanging out with Wilson tonight?"

"Nah, she got some girl stuff going on…"

"I need a drink… Joe's after we get off, you in?"

"Why not?"

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

My fingers brush across the bumpy, ridged white cap while I ponder whether to open it or not. What if I just don't take these? What if I ignore this whole entire thing? I'll go away, won't it? Kind of like when you have to pee really bad. Sometimes if you ignore it, it goes away. So if I ignore this, maybe it'll just magically go away. If I spend my time thinking that this isn't really happening to me, maybe it really WON'T happen to me. Just out of curiosity though, I twist the cap off the pill bottle and dump some of the things into my hand. They're circular-shaped, bright orange pills that are about the size of a bottle cap. How the hell am I supposed to swallow these, if I do decide to take them? I shovel all the pills back into the bottle and snap the cap back on. I toss them onto my bed and walk over to my dresser to find a pair of pajamas to put on.

I lied to Alex. Flat out, completely, totally lied to him. I don't have any intentions on talking to Steph about this tonight. I'm not telling her about this because all she's gonna do is tell me "I told you so!" Why would I tell her? I lied to him because honestly, I don't think I could face him tonight. Not tonight, at least. I can't face him so soon about it. I'm not even over it. If I stayed over his house tonight KNOWING that I'm still a little bit buzzed about what just happened to me today, he'd see it written all over my face and he'd without a doubt figure it out. I'm not ready to tell him yet. I don't think I want to tell him because…sick as it is, deep down inside me, I'm hoping that I'll miscarry. I contemplated throwing myself down a flight of steps at the hospital when I was going home for the night. I really don't want this.

I really hope that I have a miscarriage. I don't think I'd be able to forgive myself if I went and forked out all the money I DON'T have to go kill off the thing that's growing inside me so naturally, I'm hoping that maybe God or whatever's out there sees that I can't handle this and makes me miscarry. Does that make me a horrible person? I want my baby dead. I'm such a horrible person for that, aren't I? There's a baby inside of me that's counting on me for food, love and nourishment. But I don't love it enough to feed it and I damn for sure don't care about it enough to nourish it with big ass horse pills that'll get stuck in my throat.

I drag one of Alex's t-shirts out of my drawer and pull it over my head. It's only 8:00 at night but I really want to go to sleep for the night. I don't work tomorrow because Dr. Hunt called all the interns off. None of us work tomorrow. I think I'm just gonna spend the day in bed, watching TV. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to spend time with Alex yet. I don't want to spend time with him until I decide what I'm gonna do. I mean, I don't really wanna tell him. I don't want to tell him about it anytime soon because I just don't know how to. How do I tell him about this? Do I just walk up to him and say, "Hey, I know we just started dating but you're stuck with me for eighteen fucking years because you knocked me up"? And how do I tell him that his career is ruined? Mine is ruined? How do I tell him that he can't devote all his time to becoming a Pediatric surgeon anymore because he's gonna have to help me raise a damn kid?

I've been crying all day so logically I think I'm out of tears but somehow, some start to slide out of my eyes while I'm pulling on a pair of purple plaid pajama pants. Do I have to tell anyone? I'm so confused because I really want to be alone in all of this. I don't want to tell anyone and I don't want anyone to know that I'm gonna have a baby and I'm better off just doing this all on my own, I think. Yet… I'm so alone and it's making me feel nothing but really fucking sad. I kind of wish I had someone there to lay my head on their shoulder today in the doctor's office. I'm all alone and it really sucks. I go over to my bedroom door and pull it open. Steph's sitting on the living room couch with her laptop on her lap and a slice of leftover pizza in her hand. I walk past the TV and go into the kitchen. I yank open the fridge and grab the foot-long Subway hoagie I stopped and picked up for myself on the way home from work. Can I be honest? I'm still not very hungry (even more so now that I got horrible news today, my appetite's all fucked up) , but when I passed the Subway when I was driving home from work, I kind of thought that maybe I should… nevermind.

I put the hoagie on a paper plate and open it up so I can put some dressing on it. It's not appetizing to me whatsoever. I even ordered my favorite; turkey sandwich, bacon, ranch dressing on the side so my bread doesn't get soggy, American cheese, toasted. I got my favorite sandwich ever and I'm still not even hungry. It's not even making my mouth water. But I drizzle the ranch over the whole sandwich anyway and close it up. I pick up the Gatorade that Alex bought me for lunch that I didn't finish and take my food to living room. I sit down on the loveseat and put my plate and my drink on the coffee table. And like a delusional little idiot, as if the thing in my belly can hear me, I start to talk to it inside my head. _Let's get this straight. I don't love you. I don't even like you…not even a little bit. In fact, I hate you. I don't want you. So don't take this personally. I'm just feeding you. That's it. Just feeding you. _I pick up a half of the hoagie and take a bite.

"Finally got your appetite back?" Steph looks up from her laptop. I shake my head, mouthful of sandwich. I take another bite of it. _I like turkey sandwiches…do you? This is better than beer, isn't it? Sorry about that. I don't think I would've done that if I knew you were in there. How about a cookie to make up for it? _I swallow my mouthful of hoagie and reach into the bag that my hoagie came in and pick out the chocolate chip cookie I bought to go along with it. I don't know why I feel like I need to make it up to the thing for drinking beer but…whatever. Probably the same reason I felt the need to feed it when I drove past the Subway coming home from work. I don't love it though. I swear I don't love it. "Jo?" I look over at Steph and mumble "hmm?" She looks at me like I'm stupid. "I said I'm glad you're eating… didn't you hear me?" I shake my head again. I was too busy talking to it.

"I zoned out for a minute." I put the half-bitten cookie down and pick up my sandwich again. I take another bite of it. "I kind of figured I should eat something. I'm still not hungry though. This tastes…bland." I shrug and dust off the first half of my hoagie.

"I heard the pills they give you for UTIs make your food taste like rocks. That's probably why it doesn't taste good." She still thinks it's a UTI… I push the second half of my sandwich away from me along with the cookie and sit back against the couch so I can brace myself for what I'm about to do. I just feel bad that she thinks it's a UTI when it's something far worse than that. "I should've run to the store and grabbed you some cranberry juice for it. Cranberry juice really—"

I look down at the fabric that the couch is made of and desperately choke back tears that are threatening to fall. "I'm pregnant, Steph." I interrupt her. I didn't mean to blatantly interrupt her just to come right out and say it but if I didn't just say it, I would've chickened out of it like I did with Alex earlier. I was gonna tell him at lunch earlier but I totally freaked out and decided not to at the last second. So now I don't think I'm ever gonna tell him until it's noticeable for him to find out on his own. I still have a while before I start showing though. I look up at her. Her face is really pale, and it's apparent because her skin is naturally dark. Her face is pale, her mouth dropped open and her eyes are wide. "That's…why the appointment took so long." A tear fell but I hurry up and swipe it away before she could see it. "I went to see an obstetrician."

"…You're lying." She shakes her head. "You're so full of shit."

"DO I LOOK LIKE I'M FULL OF SHIT, STEPHANIE?!" I'm crying hardcore now and there is no disguising it. "I'M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. I'VE BEEN FREAKING OUT ALL DAY. I CAN'T EVEN HOLD IT TOGETHER."

"Oh my god." She covers her hand over her mouth. "I…I knew it. I knew it. There had to be a reason you were throwing up over the smell of my chips… and you totally looked it. Your face had no color, you were sick as a damn dog, moody as hell… I knew it."

"Please don't say I told you so. That's why I didn't even wanna tell you 'cause I knew you were gonna rub it in and I don't need you to rub it in right now." I put my hands over my eyes and my chest starts to hiccup for how hard I'm crying. "Don't rub it in, Steph… don't rub it in. This is the…" I can't even get out another sentence. "…This is the WORST thing that's ever happened to me…"

She slides her laptop off her lap and comes over to sit by me. "I'm not rubbing it in. I'm not." Like she's my mother and I'm her child, she forces my head onto her chest while I'm crying. She's rubbing my back, which feels good but it's not helping. Honestly? I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out right now. I've been freaking out all day but now I'm just letting it all out. I'm gonna have a BABY. I don't want it but I'm having it. No matter what I do, for the rest of my LIFE, I'm gonna be someone's MOTHER. "What did they tell you? Did they tell you like… how far along and all that stuff?"

"I'm five freaking weeks. Five weeks, Steph… I'm just…" I sniff. "I'm due on May 1st. I'm not…"

"Shh…" She keeps rubbing my back. "Did you tell Alex yet? …Is it Alex's?"

"Yes it's Alex's." I roll my eyes at that. "Just my luck. The first time we slept together I get freaking pregnant." I keep my head on her chest. I'm not calming down by any means, but I'm starting to stop crying. "It's totally what I get though. I was on top of him and he told me…you know?" I wipe my eyes hard. "He told me he was about to but I figured I didn't have to stop right away because he… he wasn't gonna cum right then and there…so I kept going and then I felt it. I felt it and then I got off. But it was only a little bit… it was a little bit." I sniff again. "Then my fucking birth control falls out the next day but stupid me… not even thinking, I figure that I don't have to take the morning after pill because… it was in when he came. It was in when he came inside me so I figured I was okay. But I'm so fucking stupid. I went to med school but I didn't put it together that sperm can live inside you for DAYS before it dies… I should've taken a morning after pill then too. I should've…"

"…Are you keeping it? You started eating… does that mean that you like… want to keep it?"

"NO!" I shake my head so fast that my head hurts. "…That's another thing." I wipe my eyes again. "I feel like such a shitty person. I'm so fucked up. Like… what kind of person doesn't love their BABY? I don't love it, Steph. I've been…." I don't really know if I should tell her this, but here goes nothing. "I was thinking of ways that I could kill it. I was gonna go fall down some steps, drink castor oil, go to Joe's and drown it in booze… I don't know. And I feel like shit… I'm SICK. What kind of person thinks of ways to kill their baby? I must be mental…because that's sick." I'm crying all over again. Shit. "I hate my kid, Steph… and that's gonna kill me. That's gonna kill me… I don't wanna hate it. I'm so sick for that…"

"No you're not… you're just confused. You're not sick…" She wipes away my freshly fallen tears. "Jo, you're not sick. You're okay… you're just confused. You're okay. It's gonna be fine…"

"NO IT'S NOT! I'm never gonna want it. I'm so scared…like what if I never love it? What if I'm stuck with a baby I don't love for the rest of my life? What kind of mother would I be?" My jaw trembles. "Then… I'm confusing myself because…" I sniff. "I don't love it, Steph. But… I was driving home and I passed up Subway and I just thought… you know…" I just look at her, tears streaming down my cheeks. "It's my _baby._ I can't just…not feed it. I'm it's _mommy. _I can't… I'm no better than my own mother if I do that. I just… I don't know. How can I not love it but want to feed it?"

"You're not heartless, Jo. You do love it… deep down somewhere, you have love for that baby. You know you do."

"But I don't."

"Then why'd you feel the need to eat something? You haven't eaten a proper meal in a week but you find out you're pregnant and all of a sudden you scarf down a half of a Subway hoagie? Sounds like love to me."

"…I don't know." I sigh.

"Did you tell Alex?"

"No…and I'm not going to."


	35. Take Care

_I've never seen a person so perfect before. I've never seen a boy so beautiful, yet he's here in my arms…in the flesh. So beautiful that he could possibly be a figment of my imagination, but clearly he's not because I'm holding him and I can feel his weight on my chest, against my body while he breathes. My fingertip grazes his perfectly rosy round chubby cheeks. When he feels my finger against his cheek, his mouth cracks up into a smile that's visible through the foreign object in his mouth. His smile makes me smile and I can't really explain the feeling I have in the pit of my stomach. It's warm and fuzzy; a good, pleasant feeling. He has tiny hands but long fingers that are tinted in a shade of cream that mimics my skin tone. His sleek, straight brown hair lies down perfectly but is so fluffy that it feels like corn silk and stands up on the ends. Like mine, his hairline starts on his forehead, just a few inches above his yet-to-come-in eyebrows. His eyebrows aren't full yet but the shadow of where they're going to be is quite clear. The white, red and black Mickey Mouse patterned pacifier I put in his mouth is bobbing loosely while he snoozes, peacefully against my chest. _

_Clearly I'm supposed to be working because my paper-thin, baby blue scrubs are rising up around my lower back through the weight of him. I don't know where I'm sitting but that's the good thing about it. I don't know where I'm sitting and if I took the time out to stop staring at the most beautiful little boy I've ever seen in my life, I'd probably be able to tell you that I'm sitting in the daycare of the hospital; but for some reason, when he's in my arms, I find it incredibly hard to care about anything else around me. It's me and him and that's all I care about. My arm is losing feeling but I wouldn't dare switch positions. I wouldn't dare move. One of my hands is on his little but, rhythmically patting while my free hand is busy playing with his perfectly silky hair. The arm that's holding him steady against my body is the one that's losing feeling and I'd rather have my arm go numb than to move it. _

I roll over at the sound of my phone ringing on the stand next to my bed where it charges all night. Groggily, I snatch the phone off the charger and look at the time. It's 2:30 in the fucking morning, who the hell wakes somebody up at this hour? I don't even recognize the number. The only reason I answer it is because the caller ID says that the number is a Seattle Washington number. I really hope this isn't someone from the hospital calling to ask me if I can come into work right now. I'm not even on call, Dr. Hunt said that we're off today so whoever it is, leave me alone. I was literally having the best sleep of my entire existence. I was so sleepy and I finally fell asleep since I didn't sleep last night because I was so nervous about my appointment. Why must someone wake me up? Nevertheless, I slide my thumb across my screen and press the phone to my ear. "Hullo?" My voice is filled with sleepiness and I probably sound like a man.

"…Jo?" I don't really recognize the voice at the end of the phone. I'm sure I've heard it before because I kind of remember hearing it before but I couldn't pinpoint exactly who it belongs to. "Wilson?"

"…Yeah?" I gather myself together and sit up in my bed. "Who's this?"

"It's April…" _I don't know an April…Oh shit, yeah I do. Please don't call me in. Please don't call me in. _"Kepner… you know… trauma?"

"Mhm…" I yawn and rub my eyes. "What do you need, Dr. Kepner?" I ask, halfheartedly.

"I'm not Dr. Kepner right now, you can call me April." I'm still so delirious from waking up out of a dead sleep like that. I don't even say anything else, I just wait for her to tell me what time she wants me to come in and what she needs. "You and Alex are something, aren't you?"

"Alex? Yeah…" I can't speak in anything higher than a mumble right now.

"Okay, just making sure. I got your number out of his phone… I don't really know who else to call…" All of a sudden, everything is clear. It's like I wasn't even asleep and I'm not even tired anymore. What's wrong with Alex? Oh god…

"Is he alright? What happened to him?" I brace my phone against my ear using my shoulder and slide out of my bed. "Why are you calling me and not him?"

"I didn't mean to freak you out. You can calm down… he's okay." I feel relief wash over me when she says that. _Then what the hell do you want? _ "He's just super drunk right now… I'm sitting here at Joe's with him and Jackson. Apparently the two of them thought it was cute to stay out drinking until two in the morning. The cab services are down so someone has to come scrape them up out of the bar… not like they could call cabs for themselves anyway, they're both drunk as heck. I was going to take him home myself but I don't feel comfortable dropping him off home alone. Is there any way you can come grab him?"

"…Yeah, just give me like… ten minutes, not even that. I'll be right there." I go over to my dresser to grab a pair of pants to throw on. April says "Thanks" and I hang up, tossing my phone on my bed. I can't believe him. Is he serious? He's so drunk that he can't call himself a cab and get his ass home? Is he SERIOUS? I swear I'm gonna rip him a new asshole. I can't believe him. He's so drunk that I have to get out of MY bed at two in the morning to scrape his ass up out of the bar? Really, Alex? I pull a pair of sweatpants up on my waist and grab a pair of my flip flops to throw on. I'm gonna kill him. Not to mention, I feel really bad for Dr. Kepner. She's heavily pregnant… and she obviously had to get out of her bed to go pick her husband up out of the bar. Men these days, I swear.

Yawning, I go into Steph's bedroom. "Steph…" I say in a harsh whisper. I put my hand against her back and shake her just slightly. "Steph…" I hear her mumble a swear word, groan and open up her eye. "…Can I use your car?" She nods. "Do you care if I bring Alex over?" She shakes her head. I know she probably won't remember this conversation in the morning, but I'll feel better if she knows that I'm bringing him and I'm taking her car. She won't remember but it makes me feel better that I at least mentioned it to her. I grab her car keys off the little space on her dresser where she keeps them and go into the living room. I seriously cannot believe Alex right now. He got off at TEN o'clock at night and he stayed out drinking until TWO IN THE MORNING? Is he SERIOUS? There's not enough booze in this world to drink for FOUR hours. It's a wonder he's not DEAD!

I unlock Steph's car and get into the driver's seat. I start the car and back out of the driveway, heading off into the direction of Joe's. I don't know if I'm more irritated that he's so drunk that he can't call himself a cab or that he's so drunk that I had to wake up out of my sleep. That was the most amazing sleep I've had in a really long time. The dream I was having…it felt so real. It was so vivid. I can literally feel weight on the spot on my chest I was holding him at in the dream. I'm so mad that it ended before I got a really good mental picture of him. I don't remember what he looked like but I do remember feeling so…incredible. I remember him being a boy but I don't remember anything else than that. I wish I could go back to sleep and have the same dream. I'm sure he was beautiful… if I could only remember him.

"Your daddy's a dickhead, you know that?" I mumble to myself clearly because obviously he can't hear me. He probably doesn't even know what I just said. I round the corner that'll put me onto the street of Joe's. I don't really think that I should tell Alex about this. How am I supposed to trust that he'll be a good dad if he pulls crap like this? Dads can't stay out until ungodly hours of the night to drink with his friend when the mom is at home with the baby. How the hell is this even gonna work? See, this is why I don't even want to have this baby. I don't want to have him and this is EXACTLY why. I'm not ready for him and Alex damn for sure isn't ready either. I'm already gonna be a shitty mom, Alex CAN'T be a shitty dad. Little Man's gotta have at least one of us that knows what we're doing.

Speaking of Little Man… I don't think he's happy. I have a weird taste in my mouth and my throat is starting to close up. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to try and ease the nausea. I have to throw up…good thing I'm at the bar. I throw the gearshift in park to park the car on the street right outside of the bar and open up the door. I step out of the car, put one hand over my mouth to keep it from spewing out and the other hand over my stomach. I jog over towards a parking meter and just let it all out. I put my hands on my knees and take a couple breaths. I'm not done I don't think. Nope. I open my mouth again and more ejects out. I spit hard into the pile of my vomit and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Coughing, I walk back towards the entrance of the bar. I feel better after puking, actually. The fact that it's raining just a little bit out here is helping as well. The cool water feels good against my burning hot skin.

I yank the door handle to the front door of the bar and walk inside. There's literally nobody in here except Jackson, April and Alex. I wipe my mouth free of throw up once again and walk over to the spot on the barstools where they're sitting. "I'm so sorry for calling you and waking you up at this hour but I literally didn't know who else to call." April's still apologetic, holding Jackson up by his arm like he can't support his own weight. They both look pathetic and I feel so, so, so bad for April. Her belly's poking out, round and plump as can be and she's standing in a bar at now three in the morning. I guess I'm not that far off from my stomach being as big and round as hers is, but still. She shouldn't be here; she should be resting with her baby. I guess I should be too. I don't know.

"No, it's fine. I'm glad you called me." I put my hand against Alex's shoulder and rub it. "…Come on. Let's go home…" He looks at me, eyes red rimmed and nearly shut. "Come on…" I hook my hand underneath his armpit and pull him up. "We should keep them on leashes…huh?" I kind of feel weird. I'm sitting in a bar at three in the morning with my intoxicated resident of a boyfriend, in my pajamas with bed hair in front of two other residents. Alex is forever putting me in complicated situations.

"Or put shock collars around their necks…whichever works." April winks at me and wraps her arm around Jackson's waist for more support while they walk. "I'll see you later Wilson."

"See ya." I watch them walk out the door, admiring the fact that it's so apparent that they love each other. She doesn't even seem mad that she had to get out of her bed to come get him, she just seems like she'd do it willingly because she loves him. She's pregnant and he clearly loves her; even when he's intoxicated. I want that. I stop watching them and turn back to Alex. "Come on baby…" I pull him off the barstool and hold his hand. He leans against me and sluggishly starts walking with me. "Let's go home… you need to sleep…" I put one arm around his waist and hold his hand while we walk.

"Are you mad at me?" His words are slurred but I understand him perfectly. His drunken voice kind of sounds like his crying voice. "I think you're mad at me… don't be mad at me Jo…" He laughs in my ear, his breath smells like hardcore liquor.

"I'm not mad at you…" I open up the passenger's side door and help him inside the car. "I'm here, aren't I?" I shut the door and walk around the car to get into the driver's side. I start the car again and start to drive home. I'm taking him back to me and Steph's house because I feel like I can take better care of him if he's at my house. I might be wrong but I just feel that way. He leans forward in the car and puts his head on the dashboard. "Please don't throw up… not in here, this isn't my car." I whisper to myself, glancing over at him to make sure he's okay. I clear my throat to speak up louder so he can hear me. "Are you okay, baby? Do you feel sick?" I take one hand off the steering wheel and put it on the back of his head. "Just wait until we get home…"

"Don't be mad at me Jo… I'm sorry." He murmurs.

"I'm not mad… I'm not mad." I turn up the corner to get onto me and Steph's street. He sounds like he's crying which is breaking my heart. I don't want him to cry because he thinks I'm mad at him. I'm irritated with him, sure but mad I am not. I'm irritated that he doesn't know his limits when he drinks. I'm irritated that he got so drunk that he couldn't call himself a freaking cab or anything. I'm irritated that he was so irresponsible and I'm worried that he's gonna act like this when Little Man's here. But I'm not mad at him. I'm not mad at him to the point where I'm not gonna take care of him and just leave him at the bar. He's my other baby…why would I treat him bad?

"I love you Jo…"

"Mhm." I park in the driveway and get out of the car. I walk around to his side and open up the door. It's not that I don't realize what he just said to be because I do. I know he just told me that he loves me. I don't know if I should say it back though. I mean, isn't it obvious that I have love for him? I got out of my bed at exactly 2:37 in the morning to go pick him up from the bar because he was too drunk to do anything but sit there. That's love, isn't it? Do I really have to say it? Especially if he's too intoxicated to even remember that I said it? Again, I put my arm around his waist and help him up the small flight of stairs. I open up the front door and drag him inside because he's really lagging. He needs to sleep. "Come on Alex…I can't drag you…" He's way too heavy and he's so hard to move but he won't walk on his own.

"This isn't home. I thought you were taking me home…" He's talking unnecessarily loud and Steph is still sleeping. I grab him by his arms and pull him hard. "Quit! I thought you said you were taking me home…. where the hell are we? Come on I want to go home with you…"

"Shh…" I strain my arms dragging him but I get him inside and shut and lock the door behind us. "It's okay…. we are home. We're at my house…" He's actually never been inside of my house before. That mixed with his intoxication, I get that he's confused. I grab ahold of his hand and lead him through the living room. I really wish I didn't have to go through Steph's room to get to my room. She's sleeping and he's loud and I really don't want to make her mad. "Baby, can you be quiet? Please?" I turn and look at him. His eyes are almost closed and he looks like he's been drinking for days straight. He's so drunk. I open up Steph's door and quietly tiptoe through her room. He's quiet too. We get inside my room and I shut the door behind us. I'm gonna go grab him some water… I turn on my light and force him down on my bed. "Stay right here… I'll be back…"

"NO JO! YOU'RE NOT LEAVING ME!" He springs up just as quickly as I made him sit down. "I said I was sorry… you can't leave…" He seems really concerned about me leaving.

"I'm not leaving… I'll be RIGHT back…" I put my arms on his shoulders and push him back down. "I promise I'm coming back…" Once I get him to calm down, I go back into Steph's room so I can go to the kitchen.

"…What is his issue?" Steph turns on her beside lamp and sits up, scrambling to put her glasses on. "He's loud as hell… oh my god…"

"He's drunk, okay? I've got this… just go back to sleep." I go over to her door. "I've got this…"

"JO! WHERE ARE YOU?!" He screams from my room.

"…You got this?" Steph raises an eyebrow at me and gets out of bed. "What do you need? You'd better go sit with him before he starts screaming again…"

"…Ice water. Big glass of ice water." I have that taste in my mouth again. Oh god… my throat is closing up and my stomach is all jumpy. "…And a glass of ginger ale. I'm gonna puke…"

"You can't take care of yourself and him, Jo." She puts on a pair of pants so she can help me out. "You're pregnant, you can't give up sleep to take care of him. He has to grow up too, you know… It's not your job to take care of him, it's your job to take care of the baby…"

I roll my eyes at her. "He's just drunk, Steph. It's not like he's high or beating my ass like Jason did. He went out with Avery and had a couple drinks. He's drunk. I've got this…" It's really apparent to me that Steph doesn't like Alex. She thinks he's a douchebag that's stringing me along for the ride. And while I understand that she doesn't like the way Alex treated me in the beginning when he was still with his ex-fiancée, she needs to drop the attitude towards him. I appreciate that she's skeptical about him because she cares about me, but I'm getting so tired of listening to her bad-mouth him and I'm getting sick of him snubbing her every chance he gets as well. They need to learn how to get along. "Forget it, Steph… just go back to sleep. I'll get my own shit. I don't know why I even brought him here…I knew you'd have a problem with it. You have a problem with everything that concerns Alex. You're always telling me that it's my house too, so why do you get—"

"Screw you, Jo." She takes her pants back off and gets back in bed. "Fine, I won't help you. I don't care. Do it all yourself. Clean up his mess while you make your own, I DON'T CARE. I'm just saying that you CAN'T do it all because you CAN'T. You can't take care of him when you're getting ready to throw up your damn self. You're pregnant, you need to take care of yourself FIRST instead of him." She takes her glasses back off. "And I've told you once, I'll say it again… I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIM. I have a problem with the way he treats you sometimes. He treats you bad and you're like my sister, so of course I don't like him if he's gonna treat you like crap. It's just hard for me to get over the way he treated you in the beginning. You used to cry all night because he would treat you like shit because of his fiancée, remember that? Of course I think he's a dog…and I probably always will, but I respect him because I love you."

"Well I don't need you to worry about me. I can handle myself… I'm just nauseous." I feel kind of bad for getting snappy with her.

"You can't handle yourself while you're handling him. You're gonna throw up while he's throwing up…" She shakes her head and gets out of her bed again. "Just go sit with him. I'll bring you the ginger ale and the water… I don't want you to overdo it. You're taking care of a baby now, I don't think you get that. And I'm sorry, but I think he's terribly immature for going out and getting drunk off his ass like that. How do you know he's not gonna do that when the baby's born? He's doing it while you're pregnant…"

"It's not like he knows I'm pregnant." I hunch over and take a couple deep breaths. I don't think I'm gonna throw up. I think it's gonna pass. "He wouldn't do it if he knew he was gonna be a dad, you reject."

"…You still haven't told him?" She stops walking dead in her tracks on the way to the kitchen and looks at me. I'm still hunched over trying to power through this bout of nausea. I shake my head at her. "Jo…. come on. You have to tell him…"

"Well I can't exactly tell him right now, can I? He's drunk as fuck…" I'm doing better. Okay… I'm alright. I stand upright and turn to go back to my bedroom. "And don't you tell him either, Steph. I'll tell him when I'm ready… I swear I will. I'm just not ready yet…" I put my hand on the doorknob to my room. "…And sorry… for snapping out on you… I'm just not in a good mood right now. I'm just irritated with him and with everything that's been going on."

"…It's cool." She sighs. "I'll try harder to like him."

"Just try. That's all I'm asking…" I open up my door and walk back inside my room. He's lying down on my bed, sleeping. He looks totally uncomfortable though. He's not even lying on a pillow. He's lying in the middle of the bed and his legs are dangling over the edge. I take a deep breath and walk over to him. I start by taking off his shoes. I take off his socks as well. I'm really not mad at him. He just went out drinking with his friend… I've been drunk like this before. And I can't get mad at him for doing this because it's not like he knows he's gonna be a dad. I unbutton his jeans and pull them down. I take them off and go to his shirt. Easily, I take his shirt off of him as well so he's just in his boxers. I pull back my covers and drag him by his arms to the middle of my bed so he can lie down correctly and comfortably.

"Jo?" He mumbles, drunkenness and sleepiness hazing his voice.

"I'm right here. I told you I'd be back, didn't I?" I bend down and kiss his head. Steph opens up my door, looks around for a second and puts the drinks down on my dresser. I mouth a "thank you" to her and she nods, closing the door behind her when she leaves. I grab the drinks and put them on the stand next to my bed instead so that they're closer. I take off my pants to get ready for bed. I turn off my light and feel my way around through the darkness. I climb into bed right along with him. As soon as I lay down, he scoots over to me and puts his head on my chest. He really likes to lay on me like this. "You want some water?" I ask him, stroking his hair. I can't be mad at him… he's my baby. My other baby, I mean. He shakes his head and puts an arm around my waist. "I'm not leaving you. I told you that… I'm not gonna leave you…" He just needs to be reassured sometimes. I get that he's still a little shaken up about how she just up and left him like that. I think he's just afraid to be alone. I don't think he's really that afraid to lose me because I'm nothing. I'm just… me.

"I love you…" He mutters into my chest.

I tilt my head downwards and kiss his temple. "Shh… go to sleep baby… I'll be here when you wake up…"

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

I have the worst headache I've ever had in my life. I don't even know why I have a headache either, I just do. I don't remember shit from last night. All I remember is getting off work and going straight to the bar with Avery when we got off. I remember laughing at something he said and then it's all just one big blur. I don't remember how I got home, I don't remember falling asleep, I don't remember anything. All I know is that I have a headache and when I open my eyes, I'll probably be hungover as hell. I don't even want to wake up but my internal body clock tells me that it's time. I guess I'll go downstairs and eat a bowl of cereal or something. Then I'll take a shower and call Jo to see what she's doing. She's off today too I think. Maybe we can go do something together. Maybe she'll wanna go grab some lunch.

I open up one of my eyeballs and everything's blurry. I go to bring my hand up to rub my eye to clear my vision but my arm is caught underneath of something. I squeeze my eyes tight and snap them open. _Where the hell… _I take a breath before I yawn and inhale a scent; my favorite scent in the world. It smells like Jo… I pick up my head and look around. In one corner of the room I'm in is a drawstring bag with the word "PRINCETON UNIVERSITY" written on it. I turn my head and she's laying asleep underneath of me. _Why is she… I must be… _I put my head back down on her chest and squeeze her tighter. _What the hell happened last night? _I move my head up so that my face is in the crook of her neck. She's sleeping so peacefully that I won't wake her up. As per usual, she's moaning here and there in her sleep. I wonder why she does that…

I kiss the crook of her neck and close my eyes. She moves her head a little bit and moves her arms around. I really don't know how the hell I got here last night. I don't know how I managed to be sleeping with her but I don't mind it. Whatever happened last night couldn't have been that bad if it landed me in bed with her. I open my eyes once again and look up at her. Her eyebrows are wrinkled and she looks uncomfortable. Just as I start to ease my grip around her waist up a little bit, her eyelids flutter open. I can't help but smile when I'm finally eye to eye with her. Her eyes are my most favorite things in the world. "…Morning." I kiss her cheek and her eyes widen a little bit like I just surprised her a little bit.

"…Good morning…" She yawns and moans the same kind of moan she moans when she's asleep through her yawn. She has morning breath but I love every single thing about her; including her morning breath. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm great..." _Waking up next to you is enough to make me feel amazing… _

"You're not hungover?"

"A little…"

"You were so drunk last night…" She knots her fingers through my hair and stares at me. "I had to come pick you up from the bar…" She's kind of smiling at me. "Dr. Kepner called me at 2:30 in the morning and told me I needed to come get you…"

"Really?" Damn. I guess what happened last night was pretty ugly then… I just don't remember. She nods her head, rubbing my scalp with all ten of her fingers. "I'm sorry…" I can't even look her in her eye. "I'm sorry… you shouldn't have had to do that. I guess me and Avery just got carried away but that shouldn't have happened… you could've just left me there. Really, you should've. You should've left me…"

"Why would I do that? I'm not just gonna leave you hanging, baby boy." She kisses me on my lips. "I was glad she called me. I'm glad you didn't try to drive yourself home or whatever. It would've been worse if she called me to let me know you were in the E.R. or something." Kisses me again. "At least I know you're safe with me…you know?"

"…So you're not breaking up with me?"

She squints her eyes and tilts her head at me. "No? Why the fuck…"

"You've been kind of weird lately… I just thought you were looking for a way to end it…"

"I've been…." She sighs. "I've been going through some shit lately. I haven't been nice to anyone so don't take it personally…." She gets really quiet all of a sudden. "…Alex? I have something to tell you…"

"You don't have to say it, Jo… I already know…" She's about to tell me she loves me. I know how bad I scared her when I said it first and she doesn't have to say it back just because I said it. I already know she loves me…she doesn't have to say it. She got up at two in the morning and came to pick me up from a bar. I was drunk as hell last night and she came and got me. I already know that she loves me. She doesn't have to say it.

"…You do?" She sits up and wrinkles her eyebrows. "How do you know?"

"You kind of show it…" I shrug. "It's no big deal… we don't have to talk about it. You don't have to say it. We can just move on… it's alright. I already know, babe. I know…"

"…But we…." She looks sincerely confused. "…Kind of have to talk about it… isn't it important? We can't just… move on…"

"I don't care about it, Jo. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care if you say it or if you don't. It doesn't make a difference to me. As long as I have you, I don't care about anything else. Yes we can just move on. It's not even a factor to me. It's irrelevant…"

"…What?" She looks like she's gonna cry. "…It can't be irrelevant. I think…" She's crying. "Why is it not a factor to you? I don't know what we're gonna do? I need your help…"

"What are you crying for? It's not a big deal to me, Jo. I know you love me… I know you do. You don't have to say it… that's not important to me. As long as I have you, I don't care if you ever tell me you love me. I can see it. You don't have to tell me you love me just because I said it to you. It's not a factor to me whether you say it or not."

"…Oh." She looks down and sighs. "…Glad we're on the same page…"

"Yeah…" I wipe her tears away. "What'd you think I was talking about, babe?"

"…I don't even know." She shrugs. "…I'm gonna go grab something for breakfast…" She wipes her own tears and gets up. "I'm hungry…"

"Me too."


	36. Cute

**A/N: M **rated stuff in this chapter.

* * *

><p>"I dreamt about him last night..." I hold the measuring cup still with one hand while I use the other hand to mix the pancake batter thoroughly. Alex is busy taking a shower while I cook for him. I'm not much of a cook but I can make him some pancakes without burning them and I'm pretty okay at making edible scrambled eggs. I should probably learn how to cook better before Little Man comes. It's like no matter what I do, I'm reminded of what a shitty mother I'm gonna be. It's not the kind of mother I <em>want <em>to be, it's just the kind of mother I'm _going _to be. I can't cook good dinners to sit down and eat as a family because I don't know how to cook. I don't know how to bake cookies to leave out for Santa Claus. I don't know the first thing about packing a lunch. Isn't there a certain way to hold a bottle? How the hell am I gonna know what it means when he cries? How do I know if he's crying because he's hungry or wants to be held? He's gonna grow up resenting me because of the kind of mother I'm going to be. I can just see it now. Damn I really don't want a baby.

"Who, Alex?" Steph is standing at the sink washing dishes while I'm cooking.

"No…" I pick up the measuring cup and go to pour some of the pancake batter onto the skillet. "The…" I lean back and tilt my head to make sure Alex isn't around before I say this. "…Baby." I put the measuring cup back down and lean against the countertop to let the pancakes cook. "It was weird. I was sitting in the hospital daycare and I was holding him. I think I went down to see him on my lunch break or something because I was wearing scrubs." The more I think and talk about my dream, the more I sort of remember what he looked like. I have that warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach again. That same feeling I had in my dream… "I was just holding him. He was sleeping like…right here." I motion to the spot on my chest he was laying at in my dream. "And he was so comfortable and so was I. He was just lying there… suckin' on a pacifier, sleeping on me." I sigh at the memory, wishing I could repeat it. "It actually felt kind of good…"

"Aww… so it was a boy? In your dream?" I nod my head while I pick up a spatula to flip the pancakes over. "What'd he look like? Did he have a name?" She's all over this. I knew Steph would get a kick out of my dream. She's more into the idea of me having a baby than I am. I still don't want my Little Man and if something happened to where everything was a big mistake and I'm not actually pregnant, I'd cry tears of joy. But I will admit that my dream was pretty nice…just holding him and all. "So you think you're having a boy? We need a boy in this house… I hope it's a boy."

"I don't know… I think it's a sign. Why else would I dream about a little boy if I'm not gonna have a little boy?" I put the pancakes on a plate when they're done and pour some more batter on the skillet to make a couple more. "He was fat… like…really chubby. He was heavy but he was really cute. He kinda looked like me… I guess there was some Alex in there but mostly me. He was gorgeous, I'm not even gonna lie. He was a gorgeous baby. I don't think he had a name. I've been calling him 'Little Man'…I think it fits."

"Why not 'Little Alex'? What's wrong with that?"

"…Because. I'm not gonna name my son…" I'm starting to get really freaked out by this conversation. I don't even want to talk about names and I'm so done talking about babies. I don't even want to think about naming my baby yet. It's not changing anything by talking about it. It's just making me really uncomfortable. I said "my son"… that felt so weird. "I'm not gonna name it something like that. I don't want to be having sex screaming out his name which just so happens to be the kid's name as well. That'd be so weird. …I'm not naming it Alex."

"So how about—"

"I'm done talking about this. It's starting to feel weird…" I scrape some of the eggs I made before I made the pancakes onto a plate. I put four pancakes on the plate along with the eggs and grab butter and syrup and a fork so I can take it to Alex. "When I'm…ready to discuss names, I'll come to you. I promise I will. But until then..." I turn to leave out of the kitchen. It's just really surreal to me. I just still can't believe that I'm going to have a baby. Steph's all happy about it which is really nice because SOMEONE has to want for the child to be born. I sure as hell don't want it to be born. But it just makes me feel like shit when I'm around Steph because SHE wants the baby to be born and I don't. I feel bad about that. I just keep waiting to love the damn thing but it's not happening for me. I don't want to starve it and kill it and I don't want anything bad to happen to it but I don't want it. How is it that my friend wants the baby and I don't? Just another reason why I'm going to be a shit mother.

I go into my bedroom and put the plate of food down on the stand next to my bed. He's still in the shower it seems. I really don't know when I'm going to tell him. It's like…every time I get the courage to do it, I start to say it and he interrupts me to talk about some other bullshit and then I lose the courage and decide to put it off for another couple days. Steph seems to think that I should tell him in some cute way but I can't think of any "cute" way to do it. When you're pregnant with a baby you don't want, it's kind of hard to be happy about anything enough to be cute about it. I think I want to wait to tell him until this whole first trimester thing is over. I read somewhere online that after the first trimester, it's pretty much a given that you won't miscarry. So I guess I should just tell him when the risk of me miscarrying is no more because even though I'd be somewhat happy if I miscarried, I imagine Alex would be pretty upset. So rather than tell him right now when I'm five weeks and could still possibly lose the baby, I should just wait to tell him until I'm sure I'm actually gonna have it…right? Help me out here.

I think that's the plan. I'm pretty sure that's what I'm gonna do. So now I have to wait until I'm thirteen weeks to tell him. I can keep it a secret for thirteen weeks… I definitely can. I don't think pregnant people start showing until they're like twenty weeks or something like that. I have to go back to the doctor in two weeks. I'll ask her then if there's still a chance that I'll have a miscarriage and if she gives me good odds, I'll tell Alex sooner. I wonder how fat I'm gonna get. I wonder how disgustingly huge my belly will be by the end of all of this. _Why don't I… _I go over to my dresser and rummage around through a tiny basket that holds a bunch of junk. I find what I'm looking for; a black permanent marker. I pull the cap off and stand next to the wall where I'll have enough empty space. I lift up my shirt and slide my arm across my stomach and put my finger against the wall to measure just how much it sticks out. When I have a pretty accurate measurement, I put a really small line on the wall and jot down the number "5" next to it. I toss the marker back inside my junk basket and sit down on my bed.

"...Maybe Alex isn't so bad…" I whisper to myself with my hand pressed against my stomach. It's actually kind of hard towards the bottom. It's not very big because it's not sticking out yet but it's harder than what my stomach should be. "Your middle name can be Alex… how's that?" _Why am I talking to him? And why am I just assuming that he's a boy? You're delusional, stop talking to him—it. Stop talking to it. _"You didn't even look like your daddy in my dream last night… you looked like me. I should name you 'Joey'… that'd piss your dad off, wouldn't it? What do you think, Little Man?" I really crack myself up with that. Alex would probably kill me if I named the baby after me first. Like Joseph Alexander instead of Alexander Joseph. That'd make him so mad… I catch myself smiling. "Good thing I don't like the name Joseph, huh Little Man?"

Just as I finish that sentence, the bathroom door opens up and he walks into my room in NOTHING. Not a towel, not a shirt, NOTHING. He's butt naked. "…I couldn't find where you guys keep your towels…" He mumbles with that goofy smile I love so much spread all across his face. He's clearly freezing cold…clearly. I can actually see the fact that he's cold. I'm watching his junk shrink as we speak. I shake my head at him, giggling, trying to hold back serious laughter. He cups his hands over his junk when he catches that I'm really laughing at him because I can see every part below his waist getting smaller. "Come on... gimme at towel or something." He's dripping water all over my carpet. "I'm cold…"

"I can see that…" I get off my bed and go over to the hanger where I keep my hair towel at. I'm laughing so hard that I'm crying. Oh god this is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. "It's laundry day… Steph's washing the towels, they're all dirty. Use this." I hand it to him. He's clearly embarrassed; his cheeks are rosy and he won't even look at me. "I'm sorry baby… I should've told you that we were out of clean towels." He takes his hands away from his junk and wraps the towel around his waist. I stand in front of him and prop myself up on my tiptoes so I can reach his mouth. "You still love me though?"

"Even though you laughed at me?" He rolls the towel and tucks it under so that it'll stay up around his waist. "You're mean to me." He leans to me like he's gonna kiss me. I lift my head and close my eyes to accept the kiss but he pulls back instead, teasing me. I huff at him and roll my eyes. "…What? Not fun to be teased, is it?" I shake my head, still in the position to kiss him. He puts his head down again and kisses me for real this time. I put my arms around his neck like I always do when we kiss and he wraps his hands around my waist. "Yeah I love you…"

"You do?" I pull away from the kiss we were just sharing but I don't pull away from him. Our foreheads are touching and we're still face to face. "How much?" I slide my hands through his damp hair and resist the urge to kiss him again.

"Too much for my own good." He breaks the tension between us by giving me a harsh kiss on my lips. "Way too much…"

"Yeah?" I curl my fingers through his hair and push his face back to me. He opens up his mouth and I go ahead and deepen the kiss between us. "Show me?"

"You don't want me to show you…" He stops kissing my lips and goes to my neck.

"Oh, I think I do…" I close my eyes and keep one of my hands on his head while I put my other hand on the tucked under part of his towel. I think it's just pregnancy hormones or whatever but for some reason, I really want him. No scratch that, I _need _him. Like…right now. I slide my thumb inside the tucked part of his towel and loosen it up so that I'll fall. It doesn't fall but only because the force of me being pressed up against him is keeping it up. I take a step backwards towards my bed and he follows my lead. He pushes me down on my bed and gets on top of me. He doesn't waste any time kissing me on my neck and untying the drawstrings on the pair of sweatpants I have on. I just keep thinking how good it is that I'm not showing…otherwise I wouldn't be able to have sex with him without telling him which just means that I wouldn't have sex with him because I'm NOT ready to tell him yet. It would really suck if we couldn't have sex because these hormones are working MAGIC on me right now and I NEED to have sex.

He pushes my shirt up so it's out of the way without him having to waste time to take it off. I lift my hips up to help him take off my pants. He throws both my pants and my underwear on the floor and immediately starts to kiss my thighs. He wraps his arms tightly around my thighs and pulls me closer to him as he slides down to a position that's comfortable for both him and me. He kisses the inside parts of my thighs some more before he actually moves his face to my middle. His tongue traces along the outside of me, parting my folds without using his hands. I put one hand against his head and close my eyes. His tongue works me from top to bottom, stopping here and there to circle around my clit. I reach behind my head and grab a pillow to put over my face. Not that I care if he sees my face while I'm moaning or whatever, I just don't want to be too loud. Steph's in the living room.

He moves his head up a little bit so all his attention is on my clit. My breathing catches in my throat as I moan into the pillow. His tongue flicks across it so fast that my leg starts to shake. "Ohh my god…" I grip onto his hair to bear with it. Just when it's starting to get really good, I hear a series of two knocks on my bedroom door. I put my hands against his head to stop him just for a minute so I can see what Steph wants. "Stop it… just for…a second…" He mumbles a "no" and digs his tongue deeper so it's actually inside of me. I moan into the pillow before I toss it away. I sit up really fast and try to stop him again. "Alex… stop… stop…" I whisper to him. He shakes his head. I close my eyes tightly and press my lips together to deal with how good this feels. "…What do…you need, Steph?" I steady my voice as best as I can. "Uhhh…." I moan as softly as I can without being loud. He pulls me closer to his face so his tongue gets deeper.

"I'm going to the mall with Leah… I just didn't want you to wonder where I went..." She responds from the other side of the door. I mouth an "okay" as if she'll be able to hear me but at this particular time, I know if I open my mouth, MORE than the word "okay" is going to come out. "Did you want to come at all?" She asks.

"…No, I'm f…fine." I look down at him. He's having the time of his life and he knows that he should stop to at least let me get Steph out of the way but he just won't stop. I pull a handful of his hair and bite my bottom lip. He stops licking and tonguing me and starts kissing my thighs again. He kisses from my thighs all the way up to my neck and starts grabbing at my shirt so I'll take it off.

"Call me if you need anything… for you or for… you know who." She says again.

Alex pulls my shirt over my head and tosses it on the floor. He pushes me down so I'm lying flat against my bed. He kisses my neck and lies on top of me. "I will…" I close my eyes as he buries his face in my neck and adjusts his position so he can go inside. "Thanks Steph…" Without any warning or precursors, he shoves himself inside of me and steadies himself between my legs. I throw my head back and fight back a moan. When I'm sure she's gone, I grab ahold of his back and wrap my legs around his waist to ensure that he's in as deep as he possibly can be.

The first thrust he makes into me is slow…soft but still just as satisfying. He stops kissing my neck and moves to my mouth. He rests his hands in the spot beside my head and tangles his hands in my hair while he kisses me. He keeps moving just as softly as his first thrust. He pulls away from my mouth and doesn't stop thrusting in and out. He moves his lips back to my neck again and kisses right below my ear. "I love you…" He whispers, his voice cracking because he's trying to catch his breath from the soft but jerky movements he's making.

"Mmmm…. Ohhh…" I lean up and kiss him on his lips. So this must be what it feels like to make love? I've never felt like this before. It's… a thousand times better than regular sex, I'll tell you that. He's so amazing. I really actually do love this man. But I wouldn't dare tell him that, especially not right now. He'd think I'm only saying it because he's making love to me and that's not true. I really do love him. Like telling him I'm pregnant, I have to tell him I love him when it's the right time. It's not the right time yet. I have to say it when he's least expecting it so he knows I really do mean it.

I do love him…

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"You sure about me not pulling out?" I ask her. It's a little late for that now, honestly. I already busted inside her but she told me that it was okay if I did. I know she's on birth control and all that stuff but even when she was back when we first started sleeping together, she'd still make me pull out. Maybe she trusts me now that we're actually in a relationship. She lies her head against my chest and starts playing with my hair. She's sitting on my lap and I'm sitting against her headboard. She just got done riding me and we're both done. I think I made her cum twice but she only squirted once. I think she likes the slow stuff better than the rough stuff. She just seems like she really enjoyed the slower thing today. I stroke her back and let her lay on me. Words can't explain the love I have for her. She's literally my dream girl. And she's just perfect for me. She's my everything. I swear I live for making her happy these days. "Baby… you sleeping?" I keep rubbing her back. She shakes her head.

She softly clears her throat. "…Yes, I'm sure about you not pulling out. It can't hurt anything…" She grabs the blankets and pulls them over us some more. "It feels better when you don't pull out…" She's talking into my neck because her head is still on my shoulder. "Do you like it better when you don't pull out?"

"I like not having to worry about it." I comb my fingers through her hair and kiss her cheek. "…Can I ask you a question, babe?" She nods her head. "When I'm on top of you… how come you won't let me hold your hands? Do I hurt you when I try to do that?" I kiss her cheek again and press my fingertips to the soft skin on her back. I've just been wondering that for a little while now. I've noticed the last few times that we had sex that when I try to hold onto her hands, she doesn't let me. She has to have her hands on my back or curled through my hair. She moves her hands away from me so fast that it's like I hurt her when I do that…that's why I'm wondering. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"You don't hurt me." She picks her head up off my chest and looks down at our proximity in relation to one another. We're both still naked and she's as close to me as she possibly can be while sitting on my lap. She looks me in my eyes and kisses my lips. "I just don't like that. I don't like feeling like I can't move, you know? And sometimes when you…or anybody, for that matter, holds my hands, I feel like I can't move. And I can't stand feeling like I can't breathe either, that freaks me out." I move her hair out of her pretty face and just stare at her. I can't believe how lucky I got to be with her. I seriously got it bad for this girl. "It doesn't hurt…that shit just brings back memories…"

"…Brings back what memories?" I glance down at her. Her eyes are closed and she's lying on my shoulder again. "Jo? Brings back what memories?" She shrugs her shoulders. "Jo." She doesn't say anything. "Jo… what did you mean?" She shrugs her shoulders again. "Josephine." She pops her head up and looks at me like I just insulted her appearance. "Got your attention, didn't it?" She raises an eyebrow at me. Mental note to never call her by her full name again. "…Well answer me then, babe. What'd you mean by that?"

"I meant that I don't like feeling like I can't move while I'm having sex with someone. I don't like it. It brings back memories. That's what I meant." She puts her head back. "Don't ever call me Josephine again, Alexander."

"…You…" Is she saying that… "You got raped?" She nods her head. WHAT?! Somebody TOUCHED her? "…When?! Why didn't you tell me?! By WHO?! I'll KILL… WHO?!"

"Chill out!" She looks me in my eyes again. She seems really calm about it too, like she's not even phased by it. "I didn't think I had to tell you about things that happened to me when I was sixteen… It happened twelve years ago. I'm over it, you don't have to kill anyone. Chill out…" She pokes my cheek and just looks at me like I'm enigmatic. "…You really know how to ruin the mood."

"…You still should've told me." I wrap my arms around her back and squeeze her, never wanting to let her go. "I don't like to think about anybody else touching you… it bothers me to think about you being with anyone but me…"

"…Just calm down." She sighs. "…I have something to ask you…"

I'm not exactly over the fact that she just told me that somebody raped her. I really don't want to think about anyone else sleeping with her. I like to think that it's me and only me. She's too perfect for anyone else. She's too perfect for me as well, but still. She's mine and nobody else can have her. I don't even want to think about anyone else having her. "Go 'head and ask me…"

"…If you…" Her voice trails off. "If you found out that you were gonna be a dad… would you feel the need to go out and drink? Kind of like… how Dr. Avery did last night? You two didn't just drink for fun, did you? I mean…you guys had to have had a reason to get that wasted… if you were having a baby, would you act that way as well?"

"Actually, we did just drink for fun." I can feel her heart beating against my chest. I like that feeling. "Avery's stoked about being a dad… I mean sure, we both had our drinks for reasons… he's nervous to actually be one and I was scared that you were gonna break up with me…but we just drank for fun, really…"

"You didn't answer my question."

"What's your question again?"

"My question is… say you found out that you were gonna be a dad too… how would you react?" She asks.

"Well it depends… is it you that I got pregnant or is it some girl I had a one-nighter with?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It does matter though. Cause if it's you, then I'll be happy… if it's you, I'll go out and drink but probably because I don't really need a kid right now. I don't need to have a kid with where I'm at in my career right now. So I'd probably go out and drink to that. But I'd be happy about it eventually 'cause it's no secret that I wanna be a daddy." I run my hands through my hair. "But if it's some tramp I had a one-nighter with, I'd probably pay her way into an abortion or something…I don't know."

"…Good to know." She sighs again. "I was just wondering what all the drinking last night was about… that's all." I feel her lips against my neck. "…Why do you want to be a dad so bad? I don't get it…"

"…Well…" I have to think about a way to put this. "I don't really have family. I mean… I have my brother and my sister but they're off doing their own thing. I kind of just wanted to start over. I always pictured myself having kids someday… but if you don't want them, I guess I can deal with not having them. I love you… you know?"

She nods. "…Did you ever… pick out names for your kids? You know how some people do that sometimes? When they're little… they pick out names? Ever think about a name?"

"For a boy or a girl?"

"…Either or."

"Obviously Alex Jr. for a little guy." I smirk at that. She shakes her head like she's ashamed of me or something. "Alex Jr. and Alexis. Keep it in the family, you know?"

"…I can see originality doesn't come from your family…" She mumbles.

"What about you? Did you always just not want to have kids to the point that you didn't even consider names when you were little?"

"No, I did… I've done a lot of name considering, actually..." She shrugs her shoulders. "Names are a big deal… I hate mine. Josephine sucks… I wouldn't want to meet a kid with that kind of moniker on a playground."

"Alright then, since you're so original, what kind of names did you give to your Barbies when you were a baby?"

"First of all… I didn't play with Barbies." She laughs. "But I dunno… I kind of like… I like Coby… or Mason… and Caleb…" She shrugs.

"You sure did a lot of thinking for a chick that doesn't want kids…"

"Yeah, I know."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I grab the remote and flip through the channels so I can find something to watch until Steph gets home. Alex left about an hour ago because he has to work tomorrow morning and I do too. He went home to shower and grab something to eat and go to bed for the night. Me? I took a shower and Little Man wanted some ice cream so I'm eating butter pecan ice cream straight out the carton. _Ooh, Bring It On! is on… I love this movie. _I turn it on and start watching it. I plunge my spoon back inside the ice cream carton and eat a heaping spoonful of it. I've been feeling weird things in my body ever since I got out of the shower. I can't really explain how it feels…it kind of feels like things are moving. It kind of feels like bubbles and air is in my stomach.

Talking to Alex after we had sex today really put a lot of things in perspective for me. I've been really trying to start to love my Little Man. I've been trying really hard. It's clear to me that Alex would love him and I really wish that I could learn to do that as well. He'll be so excited when I finally tell him that we're gonna have a baby. I mean… maybe having a baby with Alex won't be so bad. I still don't want him though and that's bothering me. Alex is gonna want our baby more than I do and I don't want that. I swear I've been trying to love him but I just can't find it within myself. I don't want him and that's that. I thought that talking to him might help but it doesn't. I try to talk to Little Man but it doesn't do anything but upset me because I'm REALLY having a baby that I don't want. I keep trying to picture myself holding the perfect little baby I saw in my dreams but I just can't envision myself being somebody's mommy.

"…Potato chips?" I look down at my stomach and talk to it. Little Man's screaming potato chips and I kind of feel him on that. I put the carton of ice cream down on the coffee table and go into the kitchen. "So… Coby Alexander… Mason Alexander or Caleb Alexander… what do you think?" I open up the pantry and grab the bag of plain potato chips. "Do you want your name to be Coby, Caleb or Mason? …Mommy kind of likes Caleb… but you can like something different." I sit back down on the couch and open up the bag of chips. I grab the ice cream and dip a chip inside of it. "I'll think of a couple more, but that's all I've got so far… what do you think?" I put my hand against my stomach as I feel that little bubbly airy sensation again. "Caleb it is…"

All of a sudden, the front door opens up and Steph walks through it. She's lugging two bags along with her. I pause the movie I'm watching and look at her. She must think I'm pathetic, sitting on the couch with ice cream and potato chips and my hand on my stomach. What a sight I must be. "Hey…" She says, kicking her shoes off and dragging the bags to the living room with me. "What time'd Alex leave?"

"…About an hour ago." I pop another ice cream soaked potato chip in my mouth. "Sorry you had to hear us going at it earlier… I tried to get him to stop but he was being a dick about it." She shrugs her shoulders like she really doesn't care and grabs a handful of chips as she sits down next to me. "What'd you get at the mall?"

"…A couple pairs of scrub pants. I bought them a couple sizes bigger so we can share them and you'll still fit them when you get a little bigger." She kicks her feet up on the coffee table and chomps on her chips. "Oh! And I got something else… you have to promise me you won't be mad at me… I just couldn't resist…"

"…What is it, Stephanie?" I ask her, my voice monotonous because I told her not to buy me anything.

She leans forward and grabs a pink and yellow bag. She reaches inside the bag and pulls out three things. One is a pack of brown and yellow socks that are dressed to look like bear cubs and ducklings. The second thing is a pack of three pacifiers. The other thing is a hooded blanket that looks like a caterpillar. It's green and the top part of it has eyes stitched into it and blue antlers. "I couldn't resist… I told Leah I had to go into Babies R Us for my sister and she came in with me. She picked out the socks and pacifiers and I saw the hooded blanket and couldn't resist… look how cute…" She hands them both to me. "I wanted to be the first person to get my baby something."

"Your baby?" I look at the socks. They look really fuzzy and soft. I take a look at the pacifiers. One of them has a star and a moon on it, the other has a sun on it and the last one is just plain lime green. "…The blanket is really cute though." I run my hand along the blanket to see how soft it is. "…Thank you Steffy… I appreciate it… these things are actually really cute…"

"There will be more where that came from." She touches my stomach. I feel weird when she does that. "Auntie Steph has to spoil the little man… you know."

"…I think his name is Caleb. It's between Caleb, Coby or Mason…" I keep staring at the pack of socks. It's weird to think that these socks are gonna go on tiny feet sooner than later. "Caleb Alexander, Mason Alexander or Coby Alexander…"

"Mason for sure."

"REALLY?"

"Mason is adorable!"

"…Ehh…" I shrug. I'll run the names by Alex when I finally decide to tell him. Maybe he'll have suggestions of his own. "Thanks again Steph… I appreciate it. If…" I sigh. "If you didn't start buying him things, I would've never started…" I grab another chip. "And smart how you got all unisex things. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be a boy but you know… if it's a girl, she'll need some things too."

"Anytime, Jo."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So this is the first time that you guys as the Grey's fans have seen me do a pregnancy. So here are a couple things I want you guys to kniw:

1. When I do pregnancies, I make the stories interactive (sometimes). What I mean is that you guys can help me pick out names. Ultimately, I choose the final name of course but I do take suggestions from my readers. You guys know what you like. And SOMETIMES...BIG SOMETIMES, When I make a couple have a baby in my fanfics, I'll try to find a picture of a baby that fits the mold of what I have in mind when I'm writing the baby. I usually like to let my readers keep their own little mental picture of babies to leave it completely up to your own imagination, but I've found that some people like it better if I give pictures to help put faces to names.

2. I'm in a little bit of a pickle here. I'm already at chapter 36 in this story. I didn't plan on speeding through Jo's pregnancy but if I don't do that, the story will be SUPER long. If you guys don't care about how long I make the story then I'll write her pregnancy at a decent, believeable speed that might only take like... 10 or so chapters. Whereas if you guys care about if this story is like 60+ chapters, I'll speed through it and make it over in about 5 chapters. It's all up to you guys. Whichever you want me to do, I'll do.

So... can you guys answer me a couple questions?

a. Out of Coby, Caleb or Mason, which one do you guys like? Do you have any other boy name suggestions? (I'll take girl names in a future chapter, just not right now)

b. When the time comes for the baby to be born, would you guys like me to provide you with a picture of what I envision the baby to look like while I'm describing him/her? Or would you rather keep the baby in your own little mental picture?

c. Do you care if this story is SUPER long?

**THANKS! :) **


	37. Fed Up

_Congratulations! You've made it to your sixth week of pregnancy. You may be starting to feel yourself developing a split personality—feeling moody one day and joyful the next. Unsettling as this is (especially if you pride yourself for being in control), what you're going through is perfectly normal! Ricocheting emotions are caused partly by fluctuating hormones. But hormones aside, your life is about to change in a big way, who wouldn't feel emotional about that? _I put my finger on the spot in the chapter I left off on and grab another baby carrot. I took an early lunch today because I have to go get some blood drawn at 12:00 so the obstetrician can screen it for any possible diseases that the baby could get from me. I took an early lunch so nobody I know is in the cafeteria and for that reason; I'm eating in the tunnels. I take a bite of the carrot and chew it, picking up my reading in the spot I left off on. _You may notice some spotting this week, which is totally normal. Light bleeding in early pregnancy is normal. Bleeding usually occurs when your bodily organs are shifting to make room for your new occupant. If you are bleeding profusely however, it is wise to contact your healthcare provider. This week, you might be feeling slight movement in your abdomen. This is your body's way of letting you know that it recognizes that something new is taking up residence inside of you. _I turn the page and grab one more carrot.

I'm kind of glad I bought myself this thing. I have a lot of questions that this book is actually answering. Like last Friday when I was eating butter pecan ice cream and potato chips, I started to puke it all up when I went to go to bed for the night. I thought I was doing something good for the baby, you know? He asked for ice cream and potato chips so I fed him ice cream and potato chips yet… I threw it all up afterwards? Well the chapter on five weeks pregnant said that it's normal to eat a large quantity of something then throw it back up. The book said that it's okay to throw up after eating because nine chances out of ten, the baby already got the nutrients and stuff from the food before I threw it up. I've made it a point to read a chapter a week. Of course when I first got the book I was already like five weeks and three days pregnant so the first night I had it, I went and read weeks 1-5. I'm six weeks and two days today. I finish off the last carrot from the lunch I packed myself this morning and crumble the plastic sandwich bag I had them in up.

I got paid on Saturday—the Saturday after I spent all day Friday with Alex and stuff. I had to pay my half of the rent plus my cell phone bill with my paycheck and I was going to put away the rest of the sixty bucks I had left so I could eat lunch this week at work. Well me and Steph went out to Walmart to do a little bit of grocery shopping and… honestly, the baby section called me. We were walking past it to get a couple gallons of milk and I felt my phone ring in my back pocket and when I looked at it, the caller ID said "Walmart's Baby Section." …Not literally, but you get the picture. I couldn't resist walking past it. So I just went and looked around a little bit. I bought this twenty dollar book and that was all I was gonna buy… until I walked past the clothing section. And I got a little carried away. I picked up a ten dollar bodysuit. It was just so cute and I had to. It's fluffy and white and it's really soft and full of plush cotton to keep the baby warm. It has a hood with little polar bear ears and there's a little cotton tail on the butt and paw prints on the footie parts. It was just so cute. And then it had a matching pacifier so I spent another five bucks on the pacifier. The pacifier is white with a polar bear footprint on it. Steph called me stupid because the baby's gonna be born in MAY when it's springtime and there won't be any use for him or her to have a polar bear bodysuit but it gets cold in Washington sometimes because it rains a lot. I'll shove him or her in the bodysuit anytime it gets a little bit cold outside. It was just SO CUTE. I had to buy it.

Anyway, now I'm too broke to buy myself lunch for the rest of the week, which is why I packed today. I packed myself some carrot sticks, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of pretzels, a couple Oreos and a can of iced tea. I guess I'm kind of different these days. I mean because normally, if I didn't have the money to eat lunch, I wouldn't care about just grabbing a soda from the vending machines or something but I just can't picture myself skipping out on lunch anymore. I slither my hand inside the bag of pretzels I packed and pop one in my mouth while I continue to read the chapter I'm on. _This week's major developments: The nose, mouth and ears that you'll spend so much time kissing in eight months are beginning to take shape. If you could see inside your uterus, you would see an oversize head and dark spots where your baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His or her emerging ears are marked by small depressions in the sides of the head, and his or her arms and legs are now protruding buds. Your baby's heart is now beating 100-120 times a minute—almost twice as fast as yours and blood is beginning to course through the tiny body. Your baby's intestines are developing and the bud of tissue that will form lungs has appeared. His or her pituitary gland is forming along with the rest of the brain, bones and muscles. Right now, your baby is a quarter of an inch long—about the size of a lentil._

I turn the page and see that I'm at the end of this week's chapter. I close the book and tuck it away safely inside the lunch box I brought today. I put all my garbage away inside the lunch box as well and slide down off the gurney I was sitting on. My appointment isn't for another half hour but I think I want to go slum it with Brynn for a little while. I would go visit Alex and see what he's doing but the last time I checked, he was in surgery to resect a four year old's bowel and that usually takes a while. Plus, it's Thursday so even if he wasn't in surgery, he'd be in the NICU all day and the NICU is just somewhere I don't want to be anymore. I worked in the NICU back on Tuesday and I found myself getting way too emotional in there. It was weird because one part of me wanted to cry because there were so many sick babies on their death beds and I'm about to have a baby of my own and that was strange. But the bigger part of me felt crummy because a very small part of me still hopes that I'll miscarry my baby. I want to miscarry but there are about a hundred babies in the NICU whose parents pray every day for a miracle. I just felt really shitty about that. How can one person be so conflicted is beyond me. I'd like to blame my fucked up emotions on the pregnancy hormones but that's a far fetch. It's just me being the shitty person I am to go buy my baby clothes but in the same breath wish he dies.

Steph seems to think that I'm just trying to convince myself that I don't love my baby. She thinks I'm just trying to act like I don't love him just to convince myself that I actually don't. She was really all over me when I bought that bodysuit. She teased me and told me that if I hated my baby so much, I wouldn't be buying it clothes. I told her to shut up. I mean that's not really true. I still don't want to have this baby but whether I want it or not, it's still coming and he's gonna need clothes no matter what. I have been getting these feelings though. I won't dare tell Steph about the feelings because I'm not exactly sure if what I'm feeling means anything or not. But sometimes when I'm reading about what's going on inside of me, I feel… fuzzy. I feel like my heart is gonna explode and I feel like I just want to smile. It's a weird feeling. I don't know if it's love or whatever so I just haven't mentioned anything to her. I take the elevator up to the Pediatric floor. I have to think of a way to tell the attendings that I'm pregnant as well. I mean I hope Alex will take care of that once I tell him. I'm just scared that they're gonna put me on light duty or whatever and I don't want that. I don't want to fall behind the other interns in my class just because I went and got myself knocked up. I feel like I'll be able to work up until I have the baby…I don't think that should be a big deal. I just heard through the grapevine that whenever an intern's pregnant, it's an unspoken rule that they put the pregnant intern on OB/GYN for nine months. I don't want that to happen to me.

Alex knows that they can't just throw me on OB like that and he knows the reason why as well. So maybe he'll take care of that for me when I tell him. I don't know…I'm just nervous about all of this. Clearly there are some things I won't be able to do while I'm pregnant but I just really don't want them to throw me on OB like I don't even matter anymore. Obviously I won't be able to be on Ortho with Dr. Torres forever, especially when she needs me to administer x-rays left and right. And I won't be able to be on trauma forever either because sometimes trauma means heavy lifting. I won't have a problem being in General for nine months…as long as I get to still feel like a surgeon. I already know that this baby is going to ruin my entire life but if it doesn't HAVE to ruin my career, I'm not letting it.

I walk down the hallway and go straight into Brynn's room. She's sitting up in her bed watching something on the TV. She got all her casts taken off by Dr. Torres yesterday so instead of the normal bed she used to be in, they switched her to a crib so she won't be able to get out of it. She reluctantly peels her eyes off the TV once she hears me shut the door behind myself. She gasps like I'm the greatest thing she's ever seen and manages to wave her hand at me while she excitedly flails the rest of her tiny little limbs. "Doh Doh! Doh Doh!"

"Hi sweetie." I walk over to her bedside and hold my arms out to her. Since there aren't any casts holding her back anymore, she stands right up and literally jumps into my arms. "Woah!" I put my hands underneath her armpits to make sure she doesn't fall. "Oh… you're getting heavy… you eatin' good in here or what?" I move her over so that she's on my hip. She wraps her legs around me and touches my chin. "…What? What are you doing?" She's touching the beauty mark I have near my chin. "Does Jo Jo have something on her face?" She nods her head. "Did you miss me?" She nods her head again. "I missed you too…" I hold her against my hip and walk around to the chair beside her bed. I sit down with her on my lap. "What are you watching?"

"…Meetah…" I think she just told me that she missed me. She pets my hair like I'm a puppy and goes right back to touching my beauty mark on my chin. "Off? Off?" She scratches at it.

"That doesn't come off, honey… that's supposed to be there." I unzip my lunch box and grab the two Oreos I saved specifically for her. "You want a cookie honey? Say 'cookie'…. 'cookie'…" She doesn't talk much which isn't good for her age. She should have a vocabulary of at least a hundred words at her age but she doesn't say much of anything. I attribute that to her shitty mother honestly. But I try to teach her how to talk while I'm with her. "Cookie Brynnie…cookie."

"…Taytew." She says "thank you" and takes one of the Oreos off me. She sits curls up on my lap and sucks on the cookie.

I tuck her gown underneath of her so that she's not cold and I just hold her. It's crazy how this is gonna be my life pretty soon. My life is gonna consist of holding my own little boy or little girl and feeding him or her cookies. I wish I could have a baby to practice on. I have to get good at this while I still can. "…Guess what Brynnie?" I rest my chin on top of her head and slowly rock back and forth with her. "…Jo Jo's gonna have a baby… you know that?" I wasn't expecting her to say anything so it's not a surprise to me that she's too occupied with her cookie to say anything. "…She's scared too." I sigh and look at the TV. I'm not sure what she was watching but some little animated brown haired princess is prancing around in a purple dress. "She doesn't know anything about being a mommy and she's gonna be one in about eight months…." I press my lips to the top of her head. "You think I'll be a good mommy?"

"…Mumma… yep." She nods her head slowly and touches my arm with her slobbery, soggy-cookie infested hand…and it doesn't bother me.

"Is that a yeah? You think I can do it?" Since her hand is already resting inside mine, I bring it up to my mouth and kiss it. "I'm gonna try. How hard can it be?" I rub her back. "I'm not gonna leave my baby at a fire station, that's for sure. And I'm not gonna let it go into the system either." I sigh again. I feel like I'm about to cry… good thing it's only me and Brynn here to witness it. "I'm nervous though… what if I do something wrong? You don't think Jo Jo's baby will hate her, do you?" I look down at her and see that her eyes are closed but she's still sucking on the cookie. "…Well at least my baby will have a comfortable place to sleep I guess…" I crack a smile at that and stand up slowly. I have to head off to my appointment now.

I guess that's one positive thing. If I'm not good at anything else about being a mother, at least my baby will have a comfortable place on my chest to sleep. I lay Brynn down in her bed and pull covers over her. Sure, I have lots of kisses and cuddles to give to my baby but kisses and cuddles aren't enough I don't think. I grab a paper towel out of the dispenser next to the sink and gently wipe Brynn's face free of cookie. She stirs softly but remains asleep. I wipe off her hands and throw the soggy cookie away. Maybe I'm just being really insecure, but I just need someone to tell me I've got this. I need somebody to tell me that I'm gonna be a good mom and my baby will be okay. I'm just so worried about all of this. I admit that I am insecure but who wouldn't be? I'm having a baby. I'm going to be a first time mother and I've never had a mother to show me how to be one. I'd feel so much better if someone just told me that it's gonna be okay. Someone just tell me that I'm gonna be a good mommy and my baby will be lucky to have me. Please just someone tell me that.

I lean down and kiss her on her forehead. "I'll see you later honey." I grab my lunch box and leave out of the room. Standing outside of her room is a couple—a woman and another woman, one blonde haired, the other brunette. They look older and they're talking to a man with a briefcase. _Must be the couple that's gonna adopt her… They look nice. _I'd like to stay and talk to them, but I'm gonna be late… there will be other times to talk to them I guess.

I walk back towards the elevator and get on it so I can go up to OB for my appointment.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Where's your girlfriend?" Mere plops down right across from me at the table and twists the cap off her bottle of water. I stare at her, my eyes hooded with annoyance. No "hey Alex, what's up?" No "How'd your bowel resection go?" No "Hey haven't talked to you in a couple hours, what's new?" Nope, none of that. Why is she my friend again? I pretend to be really busy chewing my sandwich. I don't know where Jo's at exactly but I know she had to take an early lunch. Hunt threw her on his service this morning and last time I saw her, she was running labs and doing scut. I can't remember why she took an early lunch but I remember her explaining to me why she had to. I wasn't really listening to her this morning because I was so tired. "Will she ever let us meet her?" Meredith wonders aloud. "I'm beginning to think she's a stuck up bitch."

"Who, hairball?" Cristina immediately chimes into the conversation when she sits down next to Mere. Avery sits down next to me and Kepner collapses into the seat across from him. "Yeah, what does she…think she's too good to sit over here with the residents? I would've killed to sit at the big kids table when I was an intern. We practically gave her an invitation to sit over here and she didn't take it…"

"She has a name, first of all." I grab my cup of soda to wash my sandwich down. "And second of all, she's not a bitch. She just doesn't like for people to stare at her…and you all would totally stare at her if she sat over here." I take a long drink of soda and burp quite loudly when it all goes down. April turns her nose up at me when I burp. "B'sides… she had to take an early lunch for some reason. I dunno… but she's not a bitch."

"Who, Wilson?" April grabs her plastic fork and stabs some of her salad with it. "I love Wilson… she really is sweet. I can't for the life of me figure out what she's doing with you." Everyone at the table laughs at April's corny little joke and I flick her off. "What?" She holds a forkful of lettuce and tomatoes to her mouth. "It's the truth. She's an angel and you're a friggin' nightmare."

"Your kid's gonna be born with some problem and you're gonna come crying to me to fix it… and I'm not going to. Because I'm gonna remember all the harsh things you said to me." I pop open the bag of chips I bought and shove my hand inside. Avery looks at me like I just insulted his mother. I shove a chip in my mouth and chew it obnoxiously. "Alright fine… I'll fix your kid. But only because I actually like your husband."

"…You are a classy guy, Karev." Kepner shakes her head at me. "No, seriously. If I have a daughter, you're the kind of guy I'd warn her about. No respect for women… completely insensitive…" She takes another bite of salad. "At least you're good with kids, that's one redeeming quality."

"You should've seen him before Jo, April." Mere sort of comes to my defense. "…Before Izzie too. Our intern year? Oh he was really a nightmare. Alex has come a long way. I used to hate him." She admits but that's not brand new information. I know Mere hated me intern year…everybody did. I wasn't as bad as everyone makes me seem. I just… wasn't out to make friends. When I came into this program, I wasn't here to make friends. I didn't want to make friends, I wasn't here to make friends, I had no intentions on making friends. Mere and Cristina and Izzie and George were all buddy buddy, let's look out for each other and that just wasn't me. I only wanted to look out for myself and people hated me for that. I'm doing better now…I'm learning how to be a good friend. "Speaking of Izzie… have you talked to her lately?"

"No." I dismiss the conversation before it even starts. "Why would I talk to her?" I feel like this conversation has the potential to turn sour. I haven't talked about Izzie since she left three weeks ago and that's how I want to keep it. I don't even want to think about her anymore. I want to be done with her and over her. I'm all about Jo now. "I don't owe her an apology…"

"I didn't say you did." Mere leans across the table to get all personal with me and I just look at her like she's nuts. She of all people should know that I don't like to talk about shit like this. "I was just wondering if the two of you have had any contact… you WERE engaged to her, you know…" I just ignore her like she didn't even say anything. Mere sighs. "…I kind of feel bad for Wilson, actually…" I just glare at her. "What? You have to imagine that her situation isn't easy either."

"What do you mean?" I look around at everybody else that's sitting at the table. Cristina has that look on her face that basically says that she agrees with Mere. April has the look on her face that says she agrees with the both of them and Jackson has a look on his face that suggests that he's every bit of confused as I am. It must be a girl thing. "…Seriously guys, what do you mean? Jo's happy… isn't she? Is there some weird girl thing that I'm not getting?"

April speaks up instead of Mere this time. "What she means is this..." She puts down her fork and folds her hands. "You were just engaged to Izzie what… a month ago? And she leaves you and you're all upset over her leaving you… but then you just hop right over to Jo. You have to think about how Jo probably feels…" She shrugs her shoulders. "If it were me, I know it'd suck being someone's second choice."

"Right." Cristina agrees. "I mean the girl's probably confused over you messing with her head so much. You can't just hop from one girl to the next, especially if you were engaged to the one girl. I'm guessing Hairball probably has some insecurities about that. I would… that's gotta be in her mind somewhere. Thinking maybe you have lingering feelings for Izzie… just saying."

"…So you guys think I should talk to Jo? You guys think I should let her know that she's not my second choice?" Are they trying to tell me that Jo's not happy with me? I mean, she _has _been acting a little weird lately but I don't think any of the signs point to her being unhappy. Does she think she's my second choice? Because she's not. I wholeheartedly believe that even if Izzie didn't leave me, I'd be with Jo. It would've taken me a little longer to actually do it but I swear I would've left Iz eventually. Jo's not my second choice… I really hope she doesn't feel that way… "Should I take her on a date? And talk to her about it?"

"There you go." April starts to pack up all of her garbage. "That's what a gentleman does. Good job Karev." She stands up and puts her hand on her belly. "I have to go…" She picks her lunch tray up. "I have to go up to OB and grab my vitamin refills… I'll see you later?" She's talking to Jackson now, not us. She leans down and gives Jackson a kiss on his lips. "Love you."

"Love you too." Avery mumbles under his breath with a quick graze across April's stomach.

I think I'm gonna take Jo out to dinner tonight. She's been eating again so she'll actually eat at dinner. I've got money. I'll take her somewhere real fancy and expensive where she can order whatever she wants. She gets off at 7:00 tonight and if I don't get pulled into a surgery or anything, I'll be out of here by 6:30. Tonight's perfect. We'll go out to dinner and I'll take her back to my place and we can chill and drink beer and watch movies on Netflix. I don't want her to think she's my second choice because she's really not. Jo's my everything and she would still be my everything even if Izzie was still here. I wasn't happy with Iz… I'm happy as I've ever been with Jo. I get that it probably seems like she was my second choice but she's not.

In the words of Mere, when you know it's real with someone, you just know. And I know it's real with Jo. It might not have taken long for me to fall in love with her but honestly…when you know, you know. And I know. I love her. I'll do whatever I have to do to show her that. I admit that I am a little clueless sometimes when it comes to chicks and their emotions but I'm glad that Kepner and Mere and Cristina just put things into perspective for me. I'm gonna take Jo out tonight…for sure.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"I'll run your sample pretty soon and I'll have your results by the end of the day. If you don't hear back from us, everything came back normal. I'm just gonna check your Rh levels, your antibodies, see if you're a carrier for any genetic disorders that you could pass on to your baby…all that fun stuff." Dr. Maxwell gently pulls the needle out of my arm after she collects the vial of my blood and puts a pad of gauze over the sore spot on my arm. She secures it in place with a purple Band-Aid. I pull my sleeve down to cover the spot on my arm and stand up from the chair I was sitting in. "Any questions for me before I let you go on your way?"

"No ma'am… I'm fine." I pick up my lunch box and move my hair out of my face. "...Um… since we moved this appointment up a week, does that mean I don't have to see you next week?" I wasn't supposed to come get my blood drawn until sometime next week but she called and said that since I had taken the morning after pill while I was already pregnant, she wanted to get my blood sample a little earlier to make sure everything's alright. "Or do you still want me to keep the appointment I have next week?"

"Let me screen your blood before we make any judgments about that. Before you leave, I want you to make an appointment for four weeks. I want to see you when you're ten weeks… I'll give you a vaginal ultrasound just to see how everything's doing when you're ten weeks. If I find something that concerns me in your blood sample, I'll call you and make sure I get you in here ASAP. But for now, I don't need to see you again until you're ten weeks." She scribbles my name on the tube of blood and smiles at me. "Anything else? Are you doing well with your prenatals? Any bleeding or cramping you're concerned about?"

"No, everything's okay." I shake my head. "…But um… so when I come in four weeks from now, I'll get an ultrasound? And is that when you'll tell me what I'm having? And If I'm having twins and stuff?"

"You're not having twins, sweetie." She shakes her head at me. "Your hCG levels were way too normal for you to be having multiples, it's safe for you to say you're just having one." I sigh out of relief. I wasn't going crazy worrying myself with the possibility of twins but it would sure freak me out if I was having two. "And I will not be able to tell you what you're having at ten weeks. At ten weeks, I'll give you a few good pictures of your baby and I'll make sure everything's growing right in there. And then I'll schedule you another five or six weeks from there and then I'll be able to tell you what you're having." _Okay, so… in two visits, I'll be able to tell if Caleb's a Caleb or not. _"Are you hoping for anything?"

"…I'm not really hoping… I just think it's a boy."

"Mother's intuition." She opens up the door to the room we're in and stands aside. "Take care, Jo… and call me if anything changes. Anything at all that concerns you, just call me. Even when you think you're being annoying…CALL me. Better safe than sorry hon."

"Alright. Thank you, Dr. Maxwell." I walk out of the room and go out to the receptionist to make my next appointment. She wants to see me in four weeks when I'm ten weeks. _So four weeks from now will be September…_ I look at the calendar that's taped to the receptionist's desk and count four weeks from today. September 22nd. The lady sitting at the desk that books appointments opens up her little glass door and smiles at me. Everyone is so smiley today… "Yes, I just… need to schedule an appointment with Dr. Maxwell… four weeks from today." I fish in my pocket and grab my phone so I can put my appointment in my phone so I don't forget about it.

"…I've got September 24th at 12:00 noon, how is that?" She offers.

"That's perfect, thank you." I type it into my phone. She types it into her computer and prints out a slip for me. I fold up the slip of paper and stick it in my pocket. I turn to walk away and go back to work. I think I might end up telling Alex sooner than thirteen weeks. I really need him right now. I need him to help me figure out how to tell all the attendings that I'm pregnant. I need him to tell me what to do about all of this. And I don't want to risk him being mad at me for not telling him sooner. I never even took that into consideration, you know? What if he gets mad at me for waiting so long to tell him? I'll tell him soon. I just have to figure out how I'm gonna tell him. I don't want to just come right out and say "I'm pregnant." I kind of want it to be special for him. He wants to be a dad and I don't want to rob him of anything special. It should be special for him to find out he's gonna be a dad. I have to think about how to do this.

"…Wilson?" Somebody calls my name from behind me just as I'm about to walk out of the doors of OB. I close my head because now that I recognize her voice, I can't seem to forget it. Damn. Time to come up with a lie. I sigh and plaster a fake smile across my face and turn around. "What are you doing up here on OB? Do you have a patient? Did a pregnant trauma patient come in?"

"No… I just um…" I take a deep breath. Should I tell her? I mean… it's gonna come out sooner or later. I don't really want to get caught lying to one of my bosses. And if there's anybody that understands what I might be going through, it's her. She's pregnant herself. I really can't keep this a secret for much longer. "…Can you… _not _tell Alex about this? I'm gonna do it, I just… need time." I feel sick. I'm so nervous now. God, this is not how I wanted people to find out. Fuck.

"…You're pregnant?" Her eyes are wide and her mouth is gaped open. I just nod my head. No sense in lying about this. I can't really get myself out of this. I can't lie to her in a way that'll be believable. I could say I have a consult up here but she'd know I'm lying because I'm on HER service. I can't lie to her. "Oh my gosh, how far along?" She reaches her hand out and touches my belly. Why do people do that? Seriously, why do people think it's okay to touch a pregnant person's belly without asking? It feels WEIRD, quite frankly and it's not really a term of endearment. "And Karev doesn't know?"

"…Six weeks… and no." I just look down and watch her hand creep across my abdomen.

"…Oh my gosh, congratulations!" She's smiling all hard. "We can be belly buddies for a little while… I'll pop way before you will but you'll get a little pudgy before then."

"…Yeah." I fake smile again and shrug my shoulders. "…So you won't tell Alex?"

"It's not my business." She shakes her head. "And I completely understand. I racked my brain for days when I tried to figure out how to tell Jackson. It's stressful."

"Thanks Dr. Kepner." I run my hand through my hair. Okay, at least someone other than Stephanie and Brynn know. I don't really think Kepner would tell Alex… at least I'm hoping she won't. She said she won't so I don't think she will. I'll trust her on this. "I'll see you… down on Trauma." Before she can say or do anything else to make me feel weird, I politely push myself past her and start to walk back towards the door in the direction I was heading before she stopped me. I take a breath when I get out of the door and start walking back so I can go back to work. Today has been… weird, to say the least. I just want to work and go home.

"HEY JO!" Somebody screams at me from down the hallway that I just walked down. My eyes widen and I literally stop breathing for a second. Everybody's calling me today and nobody will just leave me alone. I'm not ready to tell him yet… just my luck he's catching me walking off the Obstetrics floor. I whip around fast and catch just a glimpse of the person that's calling me… and honestly? I wish it was Alex that's calling me instead. I feel dead inside…like my skin is just there and the rest of my body is hollow. He's running towards me…

"What do you want?" I mumble to him. I bite my lip like I always do when I'm talking to someone that makes me nervous. Why does he make me nervous? I'm not afraid of him. I shouldn't be nervous around him. But I am. My confidence is literally shaken, I feel unsteady. "I actually have to go back to work..." I look down the hallway like something else is calling me. Just let me go, please. I mean, I don't really think we have anything to talk about. So you can just leave me alone, really. "I don't… want to talk to you…" I turn around to leave him but just when I thought he'd really leave me alone this time, he grabs me by my arm. "Let me go… now."

"When were you gonna tell me?" He doesn't seem mad… but I know what he's capable of and I'm a little bit scared. "What, you just thought you didn't have to tell me? You thought you could just get away with it without telling me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Jason, but you really need to get your fucking hands off me." I would hit him but… I'm at work. And I really don't want to hurt him while I'm working, for one. And for two, my arm is really sore. He's squeezing my good arm and the one I just got blood taken out of is really sore and weak. I rip away from him but his grip on me is just so tight. "Get off of me!"

He looks around to make sure there isn't anyone around us. I try again to rip away from him but he drags me by my arm back behind a wall, down to a dead end hallway. "You know exactly what I'm talking about it. We have to talk, Jo…you really thought you didn't have to tell me?!" He pushes me against a wall…not hard, but enough to make me feel uncomfortable. "When were you gonna tell me that you're pregnant with my kid?"

"…I'm not… It's not…" I can't even get it out because he's SO DELUSIONAL for that.

"Don't lie about it. I pulled your chart… you're almost two months, it's mine…"

I put my hands on him and push him hard. "Get off…" I cough a little bit, steadying my nerves. "…It's not yours. It's Alex's… I made sure of it. So just stay away. Believe me… if it was yours, I would've gotten an abortion already." Since I can't hurt him the way I really want to hurt him…because I WANT to kill him so bad right now for putting his hands on me while I'm PREGNANT… But I can't because I'm at work and I'm not losing my job over this. So the least I can do is hurt his feelings. He didn't really hit me all like that, but still… he put his hands on me and I'm pregnant. "You didn't even… when we had sex, you didn't cum. I'm sure this isn't your first time hearing about your centimeter peter… I mean, you can't really get anyone pregnant with that thing. You're a gynecologist, you should know that size matters…"

"I didn't hear you complaining." He just looks at me, disgust clear across his face like I'm a bug. "I want a DNA test when it's born…"

"If it's yours, I'm giving it away." I know FOR SURE that this baby is Alex's. There's no possible way that it could be Jason's. He didn't bust inside me when we had sex…the only reason he DID bust is because I jacked him off the rest of the way. He's so stupid, he should know that. "I'm never having a baby to you… I'd rather die than have a baby to you."

"Yeah… we'll see what that punk has to say when he finds out that you're having my baby…"

"Don't bring Alex into this. You're delusional, it's not your baby! You can keep fucking dreaming, you're never getting near my baby. It's not yours so you WILL stay away." I move my head around to stretch out my neck and start to walk away. I'm gonna cry and I don't want him to see it. He grabbed me… what if my Little Man felt that? What if he hurt my baby? "You know what Jason? Fuck you… I swear I hope you rot. Alex is… more man than you'll ever be."

"What'd you just say to me?" He grabs me by both my arms again and pushes back against the wall. I'm so tired of him hitting me and stuff… I'm gonna flip out. "Don't talk to me like that…" "Are you crazy? I'll kill your ass…" He shakes his head. "The only reason… just… don't talk crazy to me, Jo… you know what I'll do to you…"

"Stop grabbing me!" I grab onto his shoulders and bash his head into the wall. "…Just leave me alone. For good. I never wanna see you again…talk to you again… Just die… seriously." He could've hurt my baby… I mean…something inside me just snaps when I think about that. I bite my lip, trying to bear with all the horrible things I want to do to him. I won't though… I'm at work. I slammed his head off the wall, that's enough. That's enough, Jo… walk away. I bite my lip harder. I want to kill him SO bad… it's not funny. I close my eyes and look down at him. He's holding his head which lets me know that he is indeed hurt.

I somehow find the strength in me to walk away.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Shhh… okay… it's okay… I'm almost done…" The little baby girl that I'm poking and prodding with a needle is whimpering at me. She's a beautiful little girl… I'd take her in a heartbeat. I feel bad for hurting her but the medicine I'm giving her will help. "It's okay, sweet girl… just one more…" I stick the last needle inside her leg and secure it with some surgical tape. "There we go… all better…" I clean up the area around myself and take off my gloves. I sigh and leave out of the baby's room. I sent Murphy to go find Edwards to go find out where Jo is. I paged Jo to Peds but she never came. So I made sure Murphy let Edwards know to let Jo know that I'm looking for her. Murphy's on Arizona's service today and she just needed something to do.

I go over to the nurses' station and put my chart back on the charger. I just wanna know if Jo's free to go out to dinner tonight. I know she's free after 7:00 but sometimes she doesn't feel like going out after work. I just want to tell her that I love her at dinner tonight. I want her to know that she's not my second choice and I love her a lot and all of that. And if she is up to go out tonight, I want to catch her before she makes plans with Stephanie or anyone else. From the corner of my eye, I see Edwards's curly, wild, poofy hair flopping in the wind as she's running to me. I look up at her. "You find Jo?" I ask her. She's out of breath, clutching her pager to her chest, nodding her head. "…Well? Is she coming up here or not?"

"She's…" Edwards is really struggling to breathe. "…In the locker room…" Edwards leans against the counter, finally catching her breath. "You gotta come… she's… crying…freaking out.." I wrinkle my eyebrows when she says that. What does she mean she's crying and freaking out? What's…wrong…with…my Jo? "I guess… I guess… Jason… grabbed her…and said something to her…" Still breathing heavy. "Just come on… she's really banged up…"

"He what?" I tuck my pager away in my pocket and run off in the direction that Edwards came from. If I'm not mistaken, I think she said that Peckwell grabbed her. If I'm right and what she said is true, then I'm losing my job today. I'm losing my job because I'm going up to OB and I'm going to kill that man. I'm gonna lose my job and possibly go to jail but I don't care. I've already wrapped my head around the fact that I'm going to jail. I'm gonna kill him. There's no talking me out of it, no changing my mind. I already know how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna choke him. I'm gonna wrap my hands around his fucking neck and I'm gonna choke him until he stops breathing. I'm serious and I've already accepted it. I don't even care.

I'm not in my right state of mind right now. I'm really not in my right state of mind. All I'm thinking about is hovering over that man with my hands wrapped around his neck, watching him until he takes his last breath. I haven't been this angry since I was sixteen years old, standing over my dad, punching him so hard that I could've killed him. I promised myself that I'd never let myself get that mad again. I swore that I'd never let myself get that angry again but yet, here I am. I'm gonna murder that man. I already know I am. Jo's gonna have to be without me. I don't care if she's visiting me through a glass window while I'm in jail for murder, as long as he's dead and he'll NEVER touch her again. I'm serious about that. I don't want ANYBODY but me touching that woman. If you're another man, you don't get to touch what's mine.

There is no talking me out of it… I'm gonna kill the guy.


	38. Life Changer

I stand near the back of the elevator with my head against the wall, just thinking about the way this is probably going to go. I have a vision in my head about how the next few moments are going to happen and I'm not sure if I'll be able to change it. I'm pretty sure things will pan out the way I envision them to pan out because everything that I plan on doing is what I'm going to do. Everything else can possibly change, depending upon other people's reactions to what I already know I'm going to do. Here are the facts: I'm going to hurt Jason. That's a given, that's gonna happen, I've already accepted the fact that I'm going to jail for that, whatever. The only thing I'm unsure of at the moment is if I want to choke him or not. Choking him would be quick; painless for me. But beating the shit out of him until he stops breathing would be harder, but the satisfaction I would get from that outweighs the bad about that.

The elevator doors open up and spit me out onto the ground floor. I run my hand through my hair, take a breath and step off. I put my hands in my pockets and look around while I walk off in the direction I need to be in, making sure Mere or Cristina aren't around. I'm oddly calm for a man that's about to go kill another man; I'll give myself that. I'm not all hyped up or anything, I'm just calm. But I know for a fact if Mere was around or Cristina was around, they'd be able to tell that something's up with me. It's just something that the two of them are good at. Anyway, if they were around, they'd be able to tell that something's wrong with me and they'd for sure try to talk me out of this and I don't want that. I don't want to be talked out of this. I'm doing this and it's gonna happen and there's nothing that anybody can say that'll make me change my mind.

I yank open the door to the intern locker room and go straight inside. I won't lie; Jo means way more to me than going straight after that asshole. She means WAY more to me than that. So of course I'm gonna make sure she's okay before I go after her. I just can't imagine myself going straight up to OB to kill him while I'm leaving her alone, all freaked out and crying in the locker room with nobody but Edwards to comfort her. I have to make sure she's okay before I go…it's only the right thing to do.

When I get inside the locker room, it's quiet in here but the thing that's loud is the sound of Jo crying. I've never really heard her cry like this before. Put it this way—I know that she cries. Obviously she cries…I've made her cry more than once and I kind of hate myself for it. But anyway, I know that she cries but I've never HEARD her cry. I've seen it, sure…but I've never heard it. And I hear it and it's not making me want to do anything but kill him more. HE did that. HE made her cry like that… I hold my breath to chill myself out. I just have to be calm for a couple minutes while I see if she's alright, then I can flip out like I want to. I hide behind some of the lockers until I feel like I'm cool enough to go comfort her. But I listen to the conversation she's having before I reveal myself as well.

"It's okay Jo… seriously, it's okay. Stop crying… you're way too pretty to be crying like this…" That's not Stephanie's voice…that sounds like Murphy. I guess I'm glad that she cared enough to come down here and comfort my girl when I couldn't be there for her right away, but she should be up on the floor with Robbins.

"Stop making it seem like it's okay, Leah. It's not okay… I just… I'm gonna lose my job and I'm gonna get fired and I'm just gonna be in deep shit that I can't afford to be in right now." I hardly even recognize Jo's voice. She's so very upset. "I just really can't afford to deal with any of this right now..."

"But he grabbed you first…he started it. He grabbed you and you had every right to defend yourself." Now Stephanie chimes in to make her feel better. I think I'm well enough now. I'm all cooled down for the moment.

I step out from behind the lockers I was standing behind and clear my throat. "Edwards, Murphy… you guys can go back to work now." I run my hand through my hair again and sigh. "Thanks but…I need a minute alone with Jo now." The two of them understandably nod and get up from the spaces on the bench next to Jo that they were sitting in. Jo hasn't even looked at me. Her back is turned towards me and her face is in her hands. Her ear is burning red and her leg is shaking really fast. Around the edges of her hairline, her baby-hairs are sticking to her forehead and damp-looking like she was sweating for some reason. The rest of her hair is tied back in a low ponytail. Murphy rubs Jo's back before she leaves and Edwards bends down to give her a hug. They both disappear from the locker room and I just stand there, looking at her.

"…What happened?" I sit down on the bench next to her. She just shakes her head, her face still burrowed deep in her hands. I reach out and grab ahold of her hands, pulling them away from her face. "Jo, what happened? C'mon… tell me." She sniffs and just shakes her head again. "Don't say nothing. Obviously something happened… what the hell happened?" I pull her by her arm so she's closer to me. "Just tell me everything." She wraps her arms around me and puts her head on my shoulder. I think she was calming down for a second there but when she gets her head on my shoulder, she starts bawling all over again. "Hey… hey…." I put my arms around her to reciprocate her hug and squeeze her. "It's alright… okay? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. Just tell me what happened…" I put my hand against her head to make sure she's comfortable lying on my shoulder and tilt my head downwards to kiss her.

"…I'm gonna get fired, Alex… I'm so fired." Her hands are shaking against my back. She's really messed up about this. I slide my hands underneath her ponytail and stroke the back of her neck to calm her down. "We were just…arguing about something. And I told him that I never wanted to talk to him again. He kept grabbing me… not hard either, but… I got so fed up." She sniffs again. "I just didn't want him touching me at all and he kept grabbing me… he kept grabbing me. So I just… hit his head off the wall. I got so mad… And I know getting mad isn't the answer but I did. I got so mad…."

"You're not getting fired over this shit. I'll tell you that right now." I wipe away her tears and hold her closer to my body. "I'll just let Hunt know the situation and that's that. He won't take any action if I tell him everything…that Peckwell was hitting you and all that and you got tired of it. I'll tell him everything and you'll be fine. You'll be fine, I promise. Stop worrying about if you get fired or not. You're not getting fired. Your job isn't in any danger. I got you… okay?" I kiss her on her cheek. "You hear me? I got you… and you got me."

"…Okay." She picks her head up off my shoulder and kisses me on my lips. "…I just wanna go back to work. I wanna just… forget about this. Keep my head down and do my work… okay?"

"Yeah…" I help her up and fix her scrubs for her. I adjust the waistband of her scrubs and fix her shirt. "…I'll see you a little later, okay? I have something to do…"

"What are you doing?" She busies herself with wiping her face but manages to look at me from the corner of her eye. "Are you just going back to work?"

"…Nah, I have other things to do…" I wave my hand at her. "Don't worry about it…"

"No… Alex, what are you doing?"

"Don't worry about it!"

"Well I'm worried! Don't do anything fucking stupid…" She grabs my arm and pulls me. "Do YOU hear me? Alex… I'm serious. Don't do anything dumb."

"I told you not to worry about it. It isn't your business what I'm about to do. DON'T WORRY ABOUT." I shrug my arm out of her grasp. "He's never gonna mess with you again and that's all that matters. Don't worry about what I'm doing Jo. You go back to work."

"…No." She says, boldly. I hate to do this to her, but she's leaving me no choice.

I really don't want to do this. But I have to. "…Dr. Wilson, I'm ORDERING you to go back to work. Now. Get out of here and go back to your attending…this is an order." She opens her mouth but I don't let her talk. "This isn't up for debate, JO! Go back to work! As your superior, I'm telling you to take your ass back to work."

"…As your GIRLFRIEND, I'm telling you no. And as your subordinate… I'm still telling you no." She crosses her arms. "Alex… Don't do anything stupid. Look… it's me…" She takes a couple steps towards me and puts her arms around me. "…Baby, listen to me…" I stand still, my arms to the side and my face expressionless. She's not talking me out of this and she's not gonna make me crack. I'm doing this. I'm not letting him get away with touching her. And she's gonna listen to me. If I have to threaten her with scut for the rest of the week, I will. I'll make sure her little ass is on hardcore scut for the rest of the week if she tells me no again. She's my girlfriend, yes but she's also my subordinate and she has to listen to me when I order her to do something. "…Fine. Dr. Karev… I'm ASKING you to please listen to me…" I still don't look at her. "…Alex."

"Go back to work, Wilson. I'm not gonna tell you again. Get off me and go back to work or I swear to God I'll make sure you have nothing but scut for the rest of the week. You won't scrub in on anything, you'll spend your days charting. You won't even go on rounds. You hear me? So if this is a decision that you want to make…"

"ALEX." She's really mad at me. "…Stop. Okay? STOP. You're not gonna come down here AS MY BOYFRIEND and make sure I'm okay…then turn around and go all "I'M YOUR BOSS" on me. You're not gonna do it. You can't be both to me at one fucking time." She has her hands on my chest. "Now LISTEN to me." She shakes her head. "I've been trying to tell you something for the last goddamn two weeks now and you keep ignoring me. You're gonna listen to me this time. Stop being an asshole and listen to me." Reluctantly, I look down at her face. I can't stay mad at her. She's perfect…beautiful. How do I stay mad at her? "…You can't do anything stupid. I know, okay? I know you want to hurt him and I know you can't stand him and I know you want to go up there and do stuff to him. Believe me, I know. I could've KILLED Izzie for what she did to you. But I didn't because I'm not stupid… so don't you dare do anything stupid. I need you… I need you so bad. You… don't… understand how bad I need you right now but you will. And if you do something stupid to get your ass fired, I don't know what we'll do then. And more than that, you can't go to jail. Because if you go to jail then you're leaving me and you're leaving… somebody that really needs you. So don't do anything stupid."

"…I don't know what the hell you're talking about and frankly, I don't give a damn. I'm not gonna just let him slide with that, Jo… so like I said, take your ass back to work and don't worry about me."

"…You have to give a damn about what I'm trying to say. Don't you get it? Alex, you're not this stupid. You're NOT this dumb. LISTEN to me."

"I'm listening and I swear I don't give shit Jo. I love you but I don't give a shit that I'm leaving you if I go to jail. And if I lose my job… you're a big girl, you can take care of yourself. It's not like you need me to watch over you. I love you…and that's why I'm doing it. He's never gonna mess with you again."

"YOU HAVE TO GIVE A SHIT, DON'T YOU GET IT?!" She's realllllly screaming at me. I don't know what the hell her problem is but she needs to cool it. She's NOT talking me out of this. "You can't keep doing immature shit like this. You NEED to grow up… You HAVE to. It's not a choice anymore, Alex. You can't just go out and get pissy ass drunk like you did last weekend… you CAN'T just go beat up people if they piss you off! You can't think about yourself anymore, you ass."

"…And why not? I'm a grown ass man. If you're looking for an excuse to break up with me, Jo… I'm giving you it. You want an out?"

"NO! THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M SAYING!"

"Lower your damn voice."

"I never said that I want to break up with you. In fact… I NEVER want to break up with you, I want this forever… and you're stuck with me now so it's actually not as easy as you just offering me an out. I'm just saying… I need you to grow up. I need you here with me, our baby needs you here and you can't be here if you go off and do stupid shit. I want you to grow up… Stop acting like a little ass kid and grow up. You can't act like a kid if you're gonna have—"

"…Jo, what did you just say?" I swear I heard her say… I swear… She bites her lip and looks away from me. "No… what did you say?" My heart isn't even beating anymore. I swear it stopped beating. And I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that's making me feel like I'm gonna explode. I swear she just said…

"I didn't say anything. I was talking in anger." She sighs and looks around, like she's looking for an exit. "…I'm going back to work, Dr. Karev. I'll see you later." She walks past me but I grab her arm. "I said I'm going back to work… like you ordered me to do…"

"JO. What did you say?"

"I don't know. I said a lot of things." She shrugs.

"…I want you to repeat what you just said. Because it sounded like you said…"

"I can assure you that I didn't say that."

"I think you did…"

"…I had a whole… plan." She puts her head down and her shoulders droop. "I was gonna… I just thought about it today, actually." She's beating around it. I just want her to repeat what she said a second ago because I THINK she said something about a b-word and if she did say that… then I'm gonna piss my pants. Literally, I'm gonna piss my pants. "I was gonna… I bought this… it's called a bunting. It has a hood and footies and zipper that goes all the way up and it looks like… it looks like a little polar bear. And I was gonna lay it on your pillow. I was gonna come over your house tonight and lay it on your pillow while you were in the shower. This isn't really how I wanted you to find out…"

I can't even form a sentence. Is she saying what I think she's saying? Because I know what a bunting is. I see parents strap their babies into those corny things all the time and the poor kid can't move in it but the parents always think it's so damn cute but really, it's torture for the kid. The point is, I KNOW what a bunting is and I know what goes INSIDE of buntings. Babies go in buntings… Why would she buy one of those? Unless she's saying what I think she's saying… I can't talk. I can't even breathe. I feel so … have you ever felt like everything in your life is just going right? Like have you ever been so angry one minute and then…not? I can't cope with anything right now. I feel a smile tugging at my lips.

"This…totally isn't how I wanted to tell you." She ranting now and I can tell that she's nervous. "I had a whole thing planned out and you always said that you wanted to be a dad but then you said that you came to terms with the fact that you weren't gonna have babies with me and I felt bad about that so I just thought I needed to come up with a special way to tell you even though I'm clearly freaking out about it I knew you'd be happy and _somebody _has to be happy for the baby to be here because I'm not but I didn't know if I should just come right out and tell you the day I found out so I didn't because we had only just gotten together and I knew you were gonna feel some type of a way about being stuck with me but you're really not we can do the whole co-parenting thing without being together or you could just take the kid since you're the only one that really wants it I mean but technically I'm doing better with it...I've been feeding him and I kind of like having him in there and I'm really trying actually I would've told you sooner but every time I tried to say it you interrupted me so I just—"

I put my finger over her mouth to shut her up. She literally just gave a whole speech about NOTHING with no breath in between. I don't give a shit about anything else she has to say. I don't care how she was gonna tell me, I don't care why she didn't tell me, I don't care how she thought about it. I just don't care about anything anymore. I can't stop smiling… "…I'm gonna be a dad? Are you freaking kidding me?" I'm so giddy…like a kid on Christmas morning. "Are you KIDDING me? I'm going to be a DAD?"

She nods. "…How about in like… seven months?"

"…Holy shit." I sit down on the benches because my knees feel weak. I'm gonna cry. She better not tell anyone about this. I put my hands over my face and take a deep, deep breath. I feel the wetness of my tears on my hands. "…Wow, man… wow." Alright, I'm done with the crying. I wipe my eyes off and look away from her, staring at the wall. She's standing next to me with her arms folded across her chest. I can't even look at her. Not because I'm mad but because I don't want her to see me blubber like a baby. I'm a grown ass man about to cry like a baby over the fact that I'm about to HAVE a baby. Damn… no hyperbole, this is the greatest day of my life. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Even though I'm not looking at her, I reach my hand out and put it on her stomach. I can't believe this.

She unties the drawstrings on her scrub pants and pulls them down a little bit. She holds her pants up with one hand and uses the other hand to lift up her scrub top. When her scrub top is up, she pulls up the pink thermal she's wearing under her scrubs as well. Call me crazy, but I swear I can tell that she's a little pudgy. Jo's naturally very thin so if there's anything abnormal about her belly, I can tell. Towards the bottom of it, like right above her womanhood, it's poking out just a little bit. It's hardly noticeable but I work with babies for a living and I see pregnant women all the time. I know what I'm looking for when I look at pregnant bellies. "…If you tell Stephanie that I let you see it and touch it… I will beat… the SHIT out of you." She sounds so serious when she says that too.

"…You don't let her touch it?" I wipe away some more tears that snuck out and turn to face her. I put my hands on her back and pull her closer to me. She's standing and I'm sitting so her belly is in my face. I smile some more at it. I can't wait until it starts kicking. I can't wait until I can kiss it and talk to it and watch it's elbow fly across her stomach. Oh I can't wait. I'm so goddamn happy about this. "…Why don't you let her touch it?"

"Cause it feels weird. It feels weird when people touch it. And I don't let her see it either because it's ugly." She holds her shirt up for me and puts her head down to stare at it right along with me. "You're the only one that's touched it bare like this…. it feels so weird."

"…I'm special." I slide my hands across the bottom of her stomach, just below her belly button. It's not hard yet. It won't get hard until about sixteen weeks or so…but I can tell that there's definitely something in there. She has a gut that wasn't there a couple months back, when I had sex with her for the first time. "…You called it a him… how do you… know? It's not even anything yet. It's not a boy or a girl yet…" I'm not even looking at her face. I'm so mesmerized by my baby. It's MINE. That's a wonderful feeling. It's mine. I'm having a BABY. I pucker my lips and kiss below her belly button.

"…Eww, no…. no kissing it. No kissing it." She puts her shirt back down. "That's weird… don't kiss it." She shakes her head at me. "That's a no." She ties her drawstrings back up and fixes herself. "…And I had a dream that it's a boy… so it's my Little Man."

"Unless it's a little girl… then it's a Little Lady." I grab her shirt and lift it back up because I wasn't done kissing it yet. "And you're just gonna have to get over it. I'm gonna be kissing your stomach for the next seven months. I'll probably be kissing your stomach more than I'll kiss you…so get over it." I kiss her stomach once more. "…And if you tell anyone I cried… Jo, I will make sure you do nothing but charting and running labs for a month if you tell people I cried."

"Oh yeah, cause I'm totally gonna just go around and tell people 'I told Alex I'm pregnant and he cried'. Get real." She holds her shirt for me because I think she gets that I'm NOT gonna stop kissing her belly just because it feels weird to her. "…I'm due on the first of May. Isn't that weird?"

"Yeah but people rarely have babies on due dates. You might have her on your birthday or at the end of April… could be early, could be late. She'll come when she decides she wants to come."

"….She?"

"Well yeah. You're calling it a him so I'm gonna call it a her." I put my ear to her stomach to see if I can hear anything. "…Are we gonna find out what it is when the time's right or do you want to be surprised? I kinda wanna know… so I know what to buy…" I'm so excited, I won't lie. I'm excited as fuck. I want to buy clothes and decorate a nursery and buy bottles and stuff. I still have money left over from my paycheck last Friday. I'm going shopping when I get off.

"For sure. I want to know if I'm having a boy or a girl too. I don't want to buy all yellow stuff." She sighs. "…And just hold off on buying stuff…and don't tell anybody either. At least wait until the first trimester thing is over… please?"

"How come you don't sound more excited about this?" Fuck…it just dawned on me. She never wanted kids… oh my god. "…Shit Jo… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" I'm not really sorry though. I'm HAPPY as I've ever been. I'm sorry that she's about to have a baby that she doesn't want but this has to be meant to be. You know the odds of me getting her pregnant on the first try? And I'm gonna be a DAD. I'm a dad, dammit. "I know you don't want this… but… I swear we'll be okay. I'll be a great dad and you'll be great… be excited…"

"…I think I'll get there." She shrugs her shoulders and puts her shirt back down again. I let her this time. "I mean… I'm just not…" She sighs. "Not right now. I mean I'm happy that YOU'RE happy but it's just not a happy thing for me. Maybe it will be eventually but I'm not super stoked about it. I'm still just an intern. I don't have time for a baby so no…I'm not happy about this yet."

"…Okay, we can go shopping tonight. Me and you… we can just run out to that baby place down the street from Radio Shack and pick up some things. I got money. We can go shopping and then maybe that'll make you excited…"

"See, this is why I didn't want to tell you yet." She shakes her head. "Alex…don't get attached yet. I mean, I can miscarry… still. Just wait. Can we please wait until the first trimester is over? I don't need you attached if I miscarry. I already bought some things and…" She bites her lip. "…I had to stick them in a box in the back of my closet so I'll forget about them. I don't know what I'll do if we go out and buy all this shit and I miscarry. Please just… don't do this yet. Please."

"You're not gonna have a miscarriage. It's gonna be fine. We're gonna have a baby." I hold her hands. "We're gonna be mommy and daddy… can you believe that?" I kiss her hands. "It's gonna be fine. She's gonna have an awesome mommy that'll…teach her how to… be smart and go to Princeton and Harvard and how to be strong and kick a guy's ass. And I'm gonna be an good dad… c'mon Jo… just be excited…"

"I can't." She sighs again. "Not yet." She looks down at the ground. "…Just don't tell anyone yet. Just wait. I have a doctor's appointment in four weeks. If the doctor says everything's fine then, then maybe we can tell people earlier. I just wanna wait to tell the attendings and stuff. Can you do that for me? Can you wait?"

"I'll wait babe." I nod. "I'll wait." I can see in her eyes that this is killing her. I'm pretty good at reading Jo, you know? And I can tell that she really doesn't want to have a baby. But I can also tell that she's not completely against it. I think she just needs time. Me? I'm SO excited. …She won't mind if I just tell Mere and Cristina, will she?


	39. Hush Hush

"You see that break right there?" Torres points to the lit up x-ray scan, showing me this little tiny bone spur that's hardly noticeable but she pinpointed it right away. My shift's over in a little over half an hour and I'm glad because I'm beyond exhausted. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm pregnant that makes me so tired but all I've been thinking about lately is lying down. Granted, today wasn't exactly a dream day at work between Dr. Kepner and Alex both finding out that I'm pregnant and not to mention the Jason incident. Okay so the events of today in itself are enough to make anyone want to go to sleep and try again tomorrow but I imagine the fact that I have a baby inside of me doesn't make it any better. Still and yet, I pay very close attention to the things that Dr. Torres shows me because I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do this with her. "Looks like a scaphoid fracture. Can you tell me why a scaphoid fracture is hard to diagnose and treat?"

She looks over at me, expecting me to say something. I pull myself together long enough to talk. "…Because the scaphoid bone doesn't have any blood flow to it…so it takes a while to heal. And x-rays, it's not very noticeable so basically you just diagnose it by the way it feels to the patient." She looks away from me again to look back down at the x-ray and I take the opportunity to close my eyes. Ever since I told Alex about him a couple hours ago, Little Man has been really…unhappy, I think. I'm not really in any pain but I'm rather uncomfortable. I have a lot of pressure down by my lady parts and I feel like something inside me is moving. I know it's not the baby moving because he's not big enough for me to feel him moving yet, but something inside me is very uncomfortable. "…Dr. Torres, can I be excused?" I try to be discreet as I push the palm of my hand into my lower stomach, hoping to alleviate some of the pressure I'm feeling.

She looks away from the x-ray once again and wrinkles her brow when she looks at me this time. "You okay there, Wilson? What's wrong with you?" She asks. Of course, as soon as I ask her if I can have a minute alone, the pressure stops. I take a deep breath and wipe my head with the back of my palm because I started to sweat a little bit. I don't really know how high my pain tolerance is because I've never really been in a situation where I'm in a lot of pain for long periods of time, really. I've experienced pain or course but nothing like the pain of childbirth I assume and nothing like the pressure I'm having right now. I do know that when I'm in some level of discomfort though, I tend to start sweating. "Wilson?" She calls me again. I heard her the first time, I'm just having trouble getting over this. "Jo…are you okay?"

I nod my head. "…So we're gonna…cast the wrist? Or splint it?" For lack of better description, I swear I feel like one of my ovaries is gonna pop outta my vagina. It kind of feels like period cramps that come and go away. I'm good right now. I'm good. "Which one do you prefer?" Oh god…I feel like it's gonna start again. _Please stop messing with me… Little Man, please stop… I'm at work.. _I breathe in deeply and hold my breath because the pressure is coming back. It was only gone for like a minute or two and now it's back.

"I prefer to cast it so it's completely immobile." She nods her head and shuts off the light that makes the x-rays light up. "I'll get someone else to cast it for me. You can go head and change and get ready to go home." She slides the x-rays into a big envelope and opens the door to the room we're currently standing in. "You had a rough day, didn't you?" I bite my lip and nod my head. Is this even normal? I swear I shouldn't be in this much discomfort. "Are you sure you're okay?" I nod my head again. "Are you in pain?" I shake my head. I can't even be subtle with it anymore; I openly hold my lower stomach and push both the palms of my hands into my abdomen. "…Is it that time of the month?"

"…No." I take a breath and stand straight up because again, the pressure is gone again. "Think I just have a stomachache…I probably ate something bad at lunch." Or my baby is extremely inconsiderate and doesn't care if he makes his mother sick and uncomfortable while she's trying to make money to support his little ass. That could also be an option, right? Then again, take a look at his mother and his father. We're both the epitome of inconsiderate sometimes. "I'm fine. I can cast the wrist if you need me to, Dr. Torres. I'm fine."

"I already paged someone else to do it. You go on and get some rest… I'm requesting you again for tomorrow and I have a couple surgeries I want you to get a look at." She looks down at her cell phone. "Plus, I'm ready to head home for the night myself. There's nothing like a cranky, sick baby to put to sleep when you get home, right?" The two of us start walking together straight up the hallway so we can punch out at the time clock. Would it be weird if I asked her for help? Like… if I asked her how she does it? Dr. Torres seems like a good mom… would it be creepy if I asked her for a couple pointers? I'm clueless as hell here. When we get to the time clock, she swipes her ID badge, scans her fingerprint and steps aside. "I'll see you tomorrow, Wilson..." I nod my head, swiping my badge as well. "And don't worry about tomorrow… you'll be fine. Nothing's gonna happen."

She's not talking about the fact that I'm scrubbing in on some of her surgeries tomorrow, she's talking about the fact that I have a meeting with HR and Chief Hunt tomorrow. "You really think so?" About an hour after I left the locker room with Alex today, I got paged to the conference room by Chief Hunt. I guess Jason filed some kind of complaint with HR about me or whatever and I have a meeting tomorrow to give my side of the story. I mean yeah, I'm worried about the meeting but it's really the least of my issues right now. I just hope I don't get fired. I can't afford to be fired… "You really don't think I'm gonna get fired?"

"Not at all." She dismisses the subject as if it's silly, not even a chance of it ever happening. "Hunt is really understanding about these things and at the end of the day, he has the final say about whether we let you go or not. You don't need to worry about it." She taps me on my shoulder as a form of comfort. I must admit that I feel a little bit better now that Dr. Torres basically told me that I'm not gonna get fired. "And if it comes down to it… I'll vouch for you."

"Thank you…I just…" I sigh. "I really can't afford to get fired, you know? I need this job…" I shove my hands into my pockets and look around. "I just can't afford to get fired…" I repeat myself, strictly because I don't know what else to say other than I CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE MY JOB RIGHT NOW. The pay's not much as an intern but I swear I'll make it enough to feed my pumpkin, put him in diapers and make sure he has a crib to sleep in at night. I'll make it enough. But losing my job isn't something I need right now. "So thank you… it really means a lot to me that you'd have my back…"

"No problem. Make sure you get some good sleep… big things in store for tomorrow."

"I will."

**X X X **

"…So you told him? I thought you wanted to wait until your first trimester was over. What happened to that?" She shovels a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth. Dr. Torres let me out early and Steph got out late so it was my responsibility to cook dinner for the both of us. I tried to make spaghetti. I didn't burn it and I didn't completely ruin it. It's edible but the noodles are overcooked and the sauce is just a little bit bland. It doesn't taste bad if you put a lot of salt on it. I really tried, okay? "What did he…say? Was he mad that you didn't tell him sooner? Did he like…break down and cry? Or did he yell at you?"

"He cried." I shrug my shoulders and pay attention to the TV. "I did want to wait and I'm kind of upset that I didn't get the chance to make it special for him. It's not a special thing for me because well… I don't even want the thing but he does and I knew that he'd be all happy about it so I wanted to make it special for him." I sigh just thinking about it. I really do wish that I had followed through with my plan. I had a cute little way of telling him about it…I won't lie, I'm disappointed. "You know the little polar bear thing I bought? I was gonna ask him if he wanted me to stay over tonight and I was gonna bring that thing… and while he was in the shower, I was gonna just sit it on his pillow and see how long it took him to realize it. But… shit happens."

"Well how'd you do it then? Did you just spit it out?" She turns the container of sprinkle cheese over and dumps a mound of it in the bowl of her spaghetti. It tastes terrible… "I want like… all the details." As if it's delicious, she shoves another forkful in her mouth and chews. She doesn't have to eat it. I get that it tastes like shit. "And I bought you something on my way home. I stopped at the drugstore to grab some Tylenol and tampons and I picked something up for you…it's in the bag on the kitchen counter."

"What did I tell you about buying me stuff?" She's beginning to annoy me with all the stuff that she's buying for me. I really appreciate it and all but I don't like feeling like I owe her something. I already owe her my life because if it wasn't for her, I'd be pregnant and alone, living in a rundown, shitty apartment about to bring my baby into a place where there's mold and spores all over the place. I actually cried just thinking about that the other day…thinking about how if I had never met Steph, I'd be bringing my baby home to a house that would without-a-doubt qualify as child abuse. "Anyway…" I break myself out of the thoughts to answer her question. "You know how Jason grabbed me? Well when I calmed down and I was ready to leave and go back to work, he told me that he had some stuff to take care of. And I know Alex, Steph. I know when he's pissy and about to do something irrational. And I knew that he was about to go kill Jason off and stuff so I just basically told him that he needed to stop acting like a damn kid. I told him that he's gonna be a dad now and the baby would need him here and not in jail. That's how I told him. And he went off. He started crying and he just went on and on and on about how we're having a baby and how excited I should be and I was just like… dude, I'm not excited. I don't want a baby."

"I wish you would stop saying that." She puts her now-empty spaghetti bowl down on the coffee table and picks up her cup of Pepsi.

"Saying what?" I ask.

"That you hate the baby and you don't love it and you don't want it. You're not fooling anyone." She takes a long sip of soda and belches. "What do you, think that if you say it enough it'll eventually come true? Get your life together, Jo. You're not fooling anyone by repeating it over and over again. I don't even think you're fooling yourself."

"What are you talking about? I'm not trying to fool anyone. It's a fact. I don't want a baby, I don't like the baby and it's not something that I'm excited about. Whatever, I don't even care. But I'm not trying to fool anyone. I don't want a baby. I never have wanted one." I shrug my shoulders. Steph really pisses me off anymore. She's my best friend and I don't know where I'd be without her, but I swear she really knows how to push my buttons.

"You sound stupid when you say that." She shakes her head. "You love it Jo…and you know you do. I catch you looking at your belly and rubbing on it. And that whole thing in Walmart the other day? You didn't have to buy anything but you did… you spent the last little bit of money you had to buy your baby some clothes. And you call it 'Little Man' and 'pumpkin' and your 'honey'. You bought a book to read about it. I saw you the other day resting you hand on your belly like you were protecting it. You love it and you want it and you're excited. It's okay to be excited…I'm excited."

"But I don't…" I shake my head. "I don't want it though, that's what you're not getting. I'm not putting on a front and I'm not bullshitting. I really don't want it."

"WHAT is your PROBLEM?" She raises her voice at me. "Seriously, what's wrong with you? Why do you act like it's such a fucking hardship to love it? Why do you act like loving your BABY is a crime?" She must really be mad because Steph doesn't usually have such a foul mouth. I usually do all the swearing around here. "Like…what is wrong with your head, Jo? WHAT is so bad about loving your baby? You can admit it… it's a baby, you're supposed to love it and want it and cherish it and be happy about it. Why is it so bad that you do all of that? Because you CLEARLY love your baby… why don't you want to love it?"

"Stop yelling at me!" _Don't cry… don't you dare cry. _My bottom lip pokes out and I feel my face tune up and the tears start free-falling. _Goddamn hormones. Why am I crying? I'm so emotional. _I put my hands over my face and REALLY start wailing. I can't believe I'm crying this hard. I'm so hormonal. Oh god, this is embarrassing. "I don't know… okay? I'm just so confused and you're yelling at me and Alex was yelling at me and everyone just expects me to be happy but I'm not and I feel like a bad person…" I hear Steph laugh a little bit. "Why are you laughing at me now?" I wipe my face and sniff. She's really cracking up which makes me start sobbing again. "It's not funny… stop it…"

"I know it's not funny, I'm sorry…" She's still laughing. I hear the couch creak and I feel the air shift beside me. My hands are covering my eyes so I can't see but I feel her arms wrap around me. "I'm sorry..." She's cracking up though. "You're so pregnant… You are so emotional… why are you even crying?" She ravels her hand up inside her shirt and wipes my face with it. "It's not that serious for you to be crying like this… I'm sorry…" She keeps wiping my tears. "I'm sorry baby girl… It's not funny."

I sniff and pull myself together. I clear my throat and gather myself. "It's… it's not bad for me to love him." I fan myself and breathe evenly. I can't take seven more months of this shit. Crying real randomly like that and then just feeling okay afterwards? I can't deal with being a crazy hormonal bitch. This isn't me. "I don't know… okay? Just… hear me out. Don't laugh, don't make fun… just… hear me." She nods her head and keeps her arms around me in a hugging position. "…I don't want to have a baby, can we be clear about that?" She nods. "I really don't want a baby and I'm not trying to fool anyone by that; it's the truth. I never planned on having babies… babies freak me out. I just can't see myself being a mommy. I can't see myself being decent at it. I'm gonna try but… I just don't want it. I don't want to be horrible. I never had a mommy to teach me how to be one, so how the hell am I supposed to know? I don't know what moms do. I was kicked out on my ass at sixteen years old and been alone ever since. How am I supposed to be loving, nurturing and motherly if nobody's ever showed me how to do that? I'm gonna be horrible…and… I'm already a big enough disappointment. I've already disappointed like…my own parents. They didn't want me for some reason so obviously I was a disappointment at two weeks old. And then I continue to disappoint myself every day. Having sex with married men, engaged men, psychopaths on the second date… I'm just a big ass fat sack of disappointment. I don't want to add an innocent baby to the mix. I've already disappointed enough people without disappointing child… my baby's just one more person to add to the list of my disappointments. I can't have a baby and I don't want one because I don't wanna… I don't wanna fail my baby."

"But Jo—"

I interrupt her. "And then… good things don't happen to me, Steph. I don't get good things. I get… homelessness. I get psychopathic boyfriends, I get boyfriends that only want me because I'm a rebound. I get abusive boyfriends, abusive foster parents, parents that didn't give a shit if I lived or if I died. I don't get good things. Good things DON'T happen to Jo, okay? So it's like…" I look up at the ceiling. I can't believe I'm about to admit this to her. I can't believe I'm about to verbalize this. I've been thinking it for a while honestly but I never thought that I'd tell someone about it. "I get happy… I think about my little boy or my baby girl or whatever… and I think about how someone's gonna love me back. I'm gonna be someone's mommy and someone's gonna love me and I'm gonna love someone without even trying because I already do. I already love my baby more than I love myself and I know that when he…or she is here I'm gonna be head over heels. I know that. And then I start to think… my honey's gonna be the best thing that's ever happened to me… but I don't get good things. Something's gonna happen. I'm gonna… miscarry or it's gonna be stillborn or it's gonna be born with some type of incurable fatal disease because THAT'S the kind of thing that happens to Jo…get it? When she starts to love someone and something good starts to happen to her, something fucks it all up and she's left all alone again. So no… I don't want to love my baby. I do…but I don't want to. I'm just scared… I'm scared I'm not gonna be a good mom and I'm scared that something's gonna be wrong with him and I'm just…not gonna come back from that."

"Babe, I have news for you…" She puts her hand on my chin and turns my head so I have to look at her. I kind of like how Steph calls me "baby girl" and "babe" and "honey" and stuff. She's only a little bit older than me but I swear she's like the older sister I never had and the mother I always wanted. I love Steph so much. "You're already past that." I give her a questioning look and she gets it. "You're already so far past ever being what your parents were. You're not gonna leave your baby at a fire station, you care about your baby. You're smart…Jo, you're BEAUTIFUL. You're the prettiest person I know, actually…no exaggeration. You're smart and you're gonna be successful. You're already so far past what your sperm donor and your egg donor were to you. You're so far past that and your baby's not even born yet." She shakes her head. "Never worry about that. Little Man's gonna be so lucky to have a mom like you. So lucky… you're gonna be great. I know you are. And you have me…and Alex and my family. We'll all help you if you need it. Jo… I don't know why you worry about these things when you're already SO much better than all of that…"

"I… I try so hard to tell myself that but I really don't see it, Steph. I don't see it. I don't think I'm prepared for a baby. I'm not prepared to be in charge of a LIFE. I need help. Somebody please just tell me what to do because I DON'T know. I don't know how to soothe a crying baby, I don't know… I mean… should I nurse him? What if I put him in daycare too soon? I have to work… what if I miss something? What if I miss his first words or something? What am I supposed to do if he's crying for me and I can't be there because I'm in a surgery? How do you change a pamper? Or make a bottle? How do breast pumps work? Am I supposed to just.. feed him every time he cries? I'm not ready for this…"

"But Jo… you'll know." She puts her hands on my cheeks to calm me down because I really am freaking out right now. I'm panicking and just so worried. "That's what my mom always told my sister and me. She always told us that you'll know. She said when you become a mom and they put your baby in your arms for the first time, everything just makes sense. You get it because you're its mother. And you'll KNOW. You'll know what his cries mean, what he wants… sometimes he'll just want you… 'cause you're mommy and nobody is better than mommy." She winks at me. "And you have seven more months to prepare. You'll be great…"

"…I really hope you're right. I mean… I know Alex will be great because… I just… I see him. I couldn't have picked a better man to have a child with. He's a baby doctor, for god's sake. He's gonna be a great dad but I wanna be a great mom. I don't want to be a bad mom. I don't want my pumpkin to have a good dad but a mediocre mom. I want the both of us to be great… you know?"

"You have no idea how lucky your baby is. Like you said, he's got a daddy that's a pediatrician for crying out loud. Daddy's a pediatrician and mommy's the most compassionate person I know. And Aunt Stephy's gonna spoil him rotten… we got this, Jo. We got this. My baby's gonna be so happy. I'll make sure of it. My baby's gonna be taken care of."

"…Here we go again with the YOUR baby thing…. MY baby." I put my hand on my stomach and inevitably crack a smile. "He's all mine. You can have him on Sundays when I need a break." I do love my little peanut. I never denied that. I just said I didn't want him, which still isn't a lie. I'm not prepared to deal with him so no, I don't really want him. But I love him. And what makes now different is that I really wouldn't feel any kind of relief if I had a miscarriage. As opposed to a couple weeks ago, when I would be relieved. But now… I swear I'd commit suicide or something if I lost my peanut. And I am starting to get used to the idea of having him.

But I just don't know about this whole "mommy" thing.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

I jog down the stairs just as my doorbell rings for the third time. I had a long day. An AMAZING day, but a long one at that. I just got out the shower like five minutes ago and I had to put on some clothes…unless they wanted to see me naked. My hair is still damp from the shower, so I shake my head a little bit to wring the excess water out of it and yank open my front door. "We said 9:30… Just like you to be an asshole and keep us waiting." Cristina starts bitching at me as if I kept her and Mere waiting for an hour as opposed to five minutes. It's literally only 9:36 and she's bitching. She steps inside my house and kicks her shoes off, setting the box of pizza she bought down on the stand in my hallway. Mere tracks in the house after her with a bottle of tequila in tow. I also invited Jackson and Kepner over but he won't be here until closer to 10:00 because he didn't get off until 9:30. I just have news to share with everyone.

"Whatever you have to tell us better be important. There better be a reason why you couldn't wait until tomorrow to tell us." Mere looks around at the house. She always looks and examines it when she's here because it's important to her. The house used to be hers before I bought it off her and she likes to make sure I'm taking care of it. I must admit that it was homier when Iz lived here with me but I swear I'm taking good care of it. I'm a good homeowner. "And you made me bring my bottle of tequila… it better be important. I'm not even close to joking with you, Alex." I think it's important. It's very big news. I'm not supposed to tell anyone but I think they're different. I don't think Jo will care if I tell my friends. I think she means she just wants me to wait to tell the attendings and the chief and stuff. I'm pretty sure that's what she means.

Speaking of Jo, I kind of wish she was here. I asked her if she wanted to come over and we could celebrate our news by ordering takeout and just hanging out but she said no. She's not feeling well and she said she wanted to take a shower and go right to sleep so I respected that. I had an idea…it's a crazy one though. I don't know, I just thought that now that we're gonna be parents, we should live together. I really don't want to scare Jo away or anything so I haven't mentioned it to her yet but I was just thinking that she could move in with me. I don't know if I'll like my baby girl living in a separate house from me when she comes. Anyway, I just feel like Jo should be here while I tell my friends the news. But if she needs to sleep then that's fine with me.

"Shut up and sit down." I mumble to them, picking up a white and purple bag that I put in the corner of my living room when I brought it home today. Jo told me not to, but I did anyway. I went out and splurged a little bit. I couldn't help it. She just told me that I'm gonna be a dad…I had to go out and buy my baby girl something. I almost went crazy in Babies 'R Us. I only spent 130 bucks but I had potential to spend so much more. I had to stop myself. "Guess what's in the bag… just guess." I'm beaming. It's so embarrassing for me to be sitting here this giddy in front of Mere and Cristina but I can't help it. I don't think I've ever been this excited about something in my life. I wasn't even this happy when I got my job at Seattle Grace.

"New scrubs?" Cristina takes a guess. "Boards are in a few months… you choose another specialty? Somebody offer you a job?"

"Nah."

"…Don't tell me that you decided to do something crazy. Please don't tell me there's some type of tuxedo or something in the bag because you decided to run off and marry Wilson. That's the biggest asshole move, even for you." Mere tries it.

"Nope. But Jo is involved…" I look down inside the bag at the soft little yellow onesies I bought. I bought ten onesies, five packs of two. Some are light green, others are yellow and shades of brown. Some are plain white with green trim or yellow trim or brown trim. I got some bottles too. I got the really good bottles. I don't know if Jo plans on nursing my baby or not but I got these bottles where the nipple is supposed to mimic the feeling of being breastfed for the baby so if the mom isn't around to do it, it still feels like it. And it's lock-tight protection too, so no little air bubbles can get in and give the baby upset bellies or gas or anything. I bought two of them; one yellow and one green one. They cost forty bucks a piece. And I got some socks cause I let it slip to Kepner who apparently already knew and she said you can never have enough socks so I bought a couple packs of socks. And I got some binks. They're the kind of binks that the kid can suck on for years because they don't push the teeth forward. I got good binks. I really had to pry myself out of that store. I saw this brown crib with pink Winnie the Pooh bedding but I'll save that for when I actually know that I'm having a little girl.

"Is she moving in here? Is that what you called me over here for?" Cristina seems unamused.

"Make sure you put her on the lease or whatever." Mere pops the cap off the tequila and takes a sip straight out the bottle.

"You guys suck at guessing." I reach into the bag and pick up one of the white onesies. I unfold it and hold it up. "Isn't this cute?" It's long sleeved and white with lime green trim around the arms and orange trim around the neck. There's a zebra on the front of it. "Or is it kind of gay? It gotta be gender mutual 'cause she's only six weeks and—"

"…Nuh-uh." Mere shakes her head. "Nuh-uh…"

"…Tell me you're joking. There isn't room for the spawn of an evil spawn… what?!" Cristina is smiling. I can tell they're both kind of shocked.

"You guys can't tell Jo I told you…" I put the onesie back into the bag and hand it to Mere. She has a kid already so I know she'll let me know if the stuff I picked up is good or not. She's a good mom to Zola. "No going to work and congratulating her tomorrow. No touching her stomach… don't even mention it. Act like you don't know. She's not ready to tell yet and she'll kill me if she finds out that I told you guys. No telling Shepherd and no telling Hunt. She'll tell when she's ready. She's not ready to be happy about it yet so keep this a secret for me…"

"Then why are you telling us?" Mere asks.

"B'cause I had to tell SOMEBODY. She told me and then she told me to keep it hush hush. I had to tell someone… I'm excited. I get to raise a kid. I couldn't just keep it to myself…"

"So did you cry like a bitch-baby when she told you?" Cristina prods.

"No… I held it together." I lie straight through my teeth but they don't need to know that I cried. I'm happy…of course I cried. But they don't need to know that. I just can't wait for Jo to be ready to be happy about this. I want to decorate the nursery and stuff. I'm so excited to finally get a chance to do this right. And my daughter is gonna have decent priorities. She's gonna be smart and have self-respect and she's gonna be a daddy's girl. Just watch.

"Well I have to admit, I'm kinda glad you called us over here now…" Mere's sifting through the bag of stuff I bought. "I'm not so mad anymore."

"Good to know…" I sit down on the couch and grab a glass so I can celebrate my big news with my best friends. I can't wait to tell Avery as well.

I just can't wait in general.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Kind of a crappy update but it's an update, right?

Oh, and who do you think is right? You think Alex is right about the baby being a girl or do you think Jo is right about it being a boy?


	40. Do Better

I slide my hand into the pocket of my scrub pants and produce my cell phone. With shaky fingers, I unlock it and go to the keypad so I can punch some numbers in. My hands aren't shaking because I'm nervous or anything of that nature; they're shaking because I've never been in this kind of pain before. Yesterday, it was nothing but discomfort and a little bit of pressure but today, it's horrible. I'm in a lot of pain and I just pulled my pants down and sat on the toilet because I felt like I had to use the bathroom but nothing came out; there wasn't anything but a little streak of faint pink blood on the toilet paper. I think something's really wrong and just like I was when I found out I was going to have this baby; I'm alone while I'm losing it. I shouldn't be in this much pain.

I feel like I swallowed a knife and my stomach is trying to digest it. It's sharp, stabbing, pain that resides to a dull ache when the bout is over. My lower stomach, right above my womanhood is hurting so bad that I couldn't even stand up at the operating table during Torres' surgery. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom just so I could sit down. See, this is exactly why I didn't want to love this baby. I wasn't being a heartless bitch; I just knew what I was doing. I knew this was gonna happen. I knew what I was doing by trying not to get attached to him. Now I went and got myself all attached, thinking about him and dreaming about holding him in my arms and freaking myself out by how much I already loved this little thing in my belly and now look what's happening. I'm miscarrying my baby in the bathroom of my job during a ten minute bathroom break I asked my teacher to let me take. I can't even go get it checked out because I have to pull myself together long enough to go have this meeting with HR after lunch.

I dial Alex's number and push the "call" button. I don't know why he's the first person I thought to call but he is. I didn't even think to call the OBGYN first, I thought about him. Obviously I'm gonna go up to OB just to make sure I'm okay after this whole miscarriage thing is done and over but right now, all I want his Alex. I feel like I'm gonna lose it. It's like I'm being held together by the thread that someone sewed me together with and I feel the seams popping one by one. I'm gonna lose it. I can't handle this. I can't handle this alone. He's really all that I want right now. I hold the phone to my ear while it rings and just wait, keeping my breathing as steady as I possibly can through the pains I'm having. The phone rings for a moment too long before his voicemail picks up. I tap the "end" button on my phone and slide it back into my pocket. Am I really gonna have to do this myself? He won't answer his phone and I just really need him right now. How come every time he needs me, I come running? He's all messed up about his fiancée leaving him so he needs me to pick up the pieces of his broken heart. He calls me and I rush over to his house because he needs me. He goes out and gets drunk as hell to the point that he can't drive himself home. He needs me to take care of his drunk ass so I come running and I keep him at my house while I nurse his hangover. I was there for him. But I'm sitting in this bathroom losing my mind because I'm losing my BABY and he won't even answer his fucking phone?

With my hand over my stomach, I unlock the door of the stall I'm in and walk over to the bathroom. Luckily I'm alone in here. I mean really, the only other people I wouldn't mind being in here with me are Alex and Stephanie. Alex won't answer his phone or his pager and Steph is charting for Dr. Grey. They're both too busy to be here with me. I take my hand off my stomach and turn on the faucet so I can wash my hands before I go back to scrub in with Dr. Torres. I'm stronger than I'm willing to admit., not just physically but mentally as well. Even though I'm breaking down right now, I haven't cried. I just don't want to deal with everyone asking me if I'm okay, because I KNOW if I start crying over this, I won't be able to stop. I swear this is all Steph's fault. This is all her fault. She's the one that convinced me that I loved him. I was doing fine until she started hollering at me last night. I swear I wouldn't be this shaken up if she didn't force me to admit that I love my little peanut. I'm just never gonna be okay after this. I can feel it.

I shut the faucet off and dry my hands with some paper towels. As soon as I start walking to leave out of the bathroom, another sharp, stabbing pain doubles me over. "Ahh…" I hold my stomach and grit my teeth to power through it. This is worse than any kind of period cramp I've ever had in my life. I hold onto the counter of the sinks while I wait for it to pass. I take a bunch of deep breaths as I start walking again. Let me fix myself before I go back out in public. I shove my hands into my pockets and bear with the pain. I leave out of the bathroom and walk back towards OR 3, where I'm supposed to be. I really just kind of feel like I need to cry. How am I going to even explain this to Alex? How do I tell Steph? I don't think I'm gonna be strong enough to go into the box in the back of my closet and throw away all those things I bought. His pacifiers, his blanket, his bodysuit, his socks… all go in the trash. I sigh and decide to shut that part of my brain off. I'm done thinking about him. I'm pretty sure he's dead and there's no coming back from that. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for wishing he was dead for a little while there.

I open up the door to the scrub room and go over to the big sink. I wave my hand underneath the sensor to turn the water on and start scrubbing in. I scrub all the way up to my elbows to make sure I'm sterile, dry my hands with the blue paper towels we keep in here and push the door open with my butt so I don't contaminate my hands. Torres looks up from the body of the patient and gazes at me. "Feeling better, Wilson?" I nod my head as one of the scrub nurses gloves and gowns me. "Good… I want you to come over here and hold this." She motions to the retractor that one of the nurses is holding. With my hands gloved up, I walk over to the bedside and hold onto the retractor. I know I said I wasn't thinking about it anymore, but my mind is wandering. …How the hell was I even supposed to take care of a baby when it was born if I couldn't even take care of it while it was in my womb? That's the easy part, right? I killed the kid before it even got a chance to live. I knew I was gonna be a horrible mother. I'm just sorry. Sorry that I couldn't do a better job of taking care of the baby. Alex is gonna hate me… "Wilson!" Torres screams at me and I snap out of my thoughts, mumbling a "hmm?" at her. "Your hand is slipping. Are you sure you're okay? I cannot have you in here killing patients… what's wrong with you today?!"

"I'm sorry I was just…" I take a breath. I have to pretend better than this if I'm gonna get away with finishing this surgery without breaking down and sobbing. "…Did you use a lateral dissection to open him?" I ask, pretending to be really interested in this surgery when I'm not. I can't get my mind off Little Man… I've never felt like this before. I mean, I've been through a lot of shit in my lifetime. I've felt worthless before, I've felt like shit. But I've never felt the need to kill myself. I swear I want to end my life right now. I just wanna drop this retractor and leave so I can go swallow a handful of pills or stab myself in the chest or hang myself or whatever. I don't care how I do it, I just wanna die. I just don't even know what I have to live for anymore. The one thing that was gonna give my life meaning really just got ripped away from me. Where do I go from here?

"Are you sure you're okay?" She stops working just to ask me that question. "What's going on with you? I don't know what happens in your personal life and frankly, I don't care. But if your problems are going to affect your performance in MY OR, I'm gonna need you to scrub out and leave. I need you to put down the retractor, scrub out of my surgery and go find the chief to see if he has anywhere else to put you. This is a life in our hands…do you hear me?" She's being mean to me but in all honesty, I deserve it. She's right. I shouldn't even be in here with the way my mind is set up right now. "I'm closing the patient now… if you can't stick around for an extra five minutes while I staple this man's leg shut, then you can leave right now. I like you Wilson… but not enough to endanger a life for you."

"I'm so sorry, Dr. Torres. My mind wasn't focused…" I tighten my grip on the retractor so my hand doesn't slip anymore and try to focus on the task at hand. I look down and watch as she staples the incision closed. "I'm better now… I'm okay…"

"Yeah, I don't think you are." She finishes the staples and starts to dress the man's incision so it doesn't get infected or anything. "I really don't think you are okay. What's going on with you? Do you need the day off? I know what it's like to be unfocused but you can't be unfocused in here. These are people's lives, you know? You gotta keep your head. You have a natural flair for this stuff—better than any intern I've seen in years, honestly. But you have to keep your head in here. One tiny little mishap can be deadly." She finishes dressing the incision and puts all her materials down because we're done here. I put the retractor down as well. "You wanna talk about whatever's on your mind?" I shake my head. "Well as your teacher, I'm not letting you go back to work with your head messed up. So either we talk it out together and find a solution or I send you home. Pick."

"…I just really don't want to talk about it, Dr. Torres. I'm not… ready to talk about it." I take off my gloves and stick them in the biohazard container. I dispose of my mask the same way. "I just wanna work." I take off my scrub cap and toss it away as well. Torres opens up the door to the scrub room so we can wash our hands and get ready to go do some post op screenings. I just feel like I'm gonna bust out in tears. My stomach isn't hurting anymore and I know what that must mean. That must mean that he's really gone. I'd still be hurting if he was still in there. He's really gone. I purse my lips to ensure that tears won't fall while I start washing my hands. She's standing beside me, washing her hands in silence right along with me. I can't do this anymore. I'm losing it. "...My boyfriend won't answer his phone…or his pages." I mumble, trying so hard not to cry.

"So you're all loopy today because Karev won't talk to you? I know relationship issues suck, but you've really gotta—" She starts preaching to me and you know what? Whatever. I was gonna wait to tell people until the end of my first trimester but what's that matter now? I'm not having a baby anymore so it's not like it even matters. I grab some paper towels and start drying my hands just as I interrupt her to give her the whole story.

"…I'm pregnant. Or… I was." I dry my hands and toss the paper towels in the trashcan. I lean against the sink and pick at my fingernails just to avoid making eye contact with her because I really feel that I'm gonna cry. "I've been having these really bad pains for two days now and…" My voice just cracked and tears tickle my face as they roll down my cheeks. "I…. I read in the baby books that it was okay to feel a little bit of pressure because it just means that your organs are shifting and stuff…" I wipe my cheeks with the backs of my hands. "So I just didn't think that I needed to call my doctor…I didn't think it was serious. But then… It just wasn't feeling right. I started having pains again this morning and I've been having them ever since I woke up. And when I excused myself to the bathroom…" I wipe my face again and clear my throat. Surprisingly, I'm not doing too bad with this. I'm doing okay. "There was a little bit of blood on the toilet paper when I wiped… I'm having a miscarriage…and my boyfriend won't even answer his phone… and I'm too scared to go up to OB by myself…I just can't deal with it if they tell me what I already know… I'm so sorry to dump all this crap on you and to bring my personal issues into your OR… I'm sorry."

"…I knew something was up with you. I knew you were pregnant… I knew it." She takes a step closer to me and hands me some of the blue paper towels to wipe my face off. "...No, that's a reason for you to be distracted… that's a reason." She sighs. "I didn't think I was gonna be able to ever work again when my wife had a miscarriage. It's the worst possible thing to deal with… I feel you on that."

I sniff again. "How'd you guys get through it? Because I'm really feeling like I'm gonna die… I feel so…" I shrug my shoulders. I can't even put into words how I'm feeling, to be honest. I can't describe this feeling. All I know is that I wouldn't even wish this feeling on my worst enemy.

"We're still getting through it." She says, softly but realistically harsh. "…I have about an hour before my next surgery... c'mon… we can go up to OB together."

"I don't want to… I can't… I can't have them tell me that my baby died…I can't deal with that…"

"Well what if they tell you that everything's okay?" She tilts her head and looks at me. "Are you an obstetrician? Can you tell me for sure that you miscarried your baby? What if we go up there and they tell you that everything's okay? Don't you wanna hear that?" She's being so nice and caring. I think of Dr. Torres on a whole totally different level… "Don't you wanna hear that, Jo?" I shrug my shoulders and sigh. "Come on…"

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"You think six sutures will hold?" I stare down at the kid's open chest and take really in depth looks at the ones Cristina put in. Robbins and Altman are letting us fly solo in the OR today. With boards coming up and stuff, they've been trying to let us get as much experience under our belt as possible. Altman's sitting near the back of the OR supervising, but Robbins trusted me enough to be in here alone. Not that Cristina's not good because she is…she's amazing, actually but there's no way the two of us were gonna do a heart transplant on a six year old without any kind of supervision. "Kid's been on the transplant list since he was three years old, I'd hate to have his heart fail just because you're too cocky to throw in another suture." I poke at the heart with my finger to try and get it to beat on its own. "You better not have screwed this up, Yang… I'm not kidding."

"Charge the paddles to 350." She barks at the scrub nurse, holding the internal paddles to shock the heart into beating on its own. "All this daddy business has made you overprotective and grouchy. I can only imagine what an intolerable pain in the ass you're gonna be once the kid's actually born." She snubs me, smug because the shock did the trick and the heart is beating away right now. "Shall we close him up or do you wanna question my technique one more time, daddio?" I roll my eyes at her and grab a staple gun so we can start closing the kid's chest. I just don't have the energy to properly argue with Cristina at the moment. I've been standing for three hours doing this surgery and I just want to sit down and grab something to eat. "And Owen told me to ask you if hairball has enough friends to throw her a baby shower or if you want him to enlist some of the attendings and fellows to do it."

"…You told HUNT?" I stop dead in the middle of closing this kid up. "What part of DON'T TELL ANYONE don't you understand? You couldn't just mention this to… I dunno… Webber or something? You HAD to mention it to the CHIEF? I told you not to tell people for a REASON." _This is bad. This is very bad. _"Jo's gonna KILL me. Why can't you just keep your mouth shut like Mere?"

"First of all, I was having a conversation with my BOYFRIEND about something one of my friends told me. I told him as a boyfriend, not as the chief, dumbass." She snatches the staple gun out of my hand and starts to close because I'm way too pissed off to do it. "And you don't think Owen has a right to know? He's the chief… he's in charge of all assignments. You wouldn't want him assigning her to be on Ortho dealing with broken bones and X-RAYS all day, would you? He needed to know… and he needed to know before the hairball got up the courage to tell herself which would've probably been never."

"I don't care how you put this to try and cover your ass, Yang. I told you because I trusted you not to tell and what do you do? You go off and tell. I can't ask you for anything. I can't trust you to do anything right." I take my mask off because I'm done in here. I can't even be around her. "My fault though. I should've never told you."

"Alex… chill." She stops closing, the same way I did when I first got mad. "I did you a favor. I would've never mentioned it to him if I knew it was gonna piss you off, obviously. But it's not like Owen's gonna go find her just to congratulate her. I told him all the terms and conditions and I told him that you and Ponytail McGee were gonna announce it when you were ready. He said he'll wait but in the meantime, he'll look out for her and make sure she's not on any dangerous specialties. Just calm down. I know you're pissed and I guess you have a reason to be but you need to calm down. It's not like I just told the world that you bombed The World Trade Center on 9/11. I told OWEN that one of my good friends is gonna have a baby. That's HAPPY news. I'm HAPPY for you."

"Whatever. You still should've kept your mouth shut." I sigh and pick up some gauze to resume helping her close up. One of the scrub nurses puts my mask back on for me so I don't contaminate my hands by it. "Anyway…" I wait for her to finish stapling. "I think Edwards will be in charge of throwing the baby shower. We have little secret battles between the two of us to see who's more important to Jo…it's like a silent contest or something because she thinks best friend trumps boyfriend. I might have to kill Edwards off if I don't let her throw the baby shower."

"Best friend does trump boyfriend… especially when the boyfriend wasn't always nice to the best friend. You weren't always nice to hairball…ever occur to you that maybe her friend as a reason to despise you? You are an evil spawn, you know…"

"But that's different now. I'm not mean to Jo anymore…I treat her like a princess. I make sure of it. Jo knows that she and the baby won't have nothing to worry about. I'll take care of both of my girls for the rest of their lives. Jo knows where she stands in my life. She knows." I don't like to remember how I used to treat Jo. I used to treat her so bad and I really am sorry for that. "I get that it might feel rushed and that might make her feel all…whatever, but that doesn't mean I don't like her any more or less. We got together right after Iz left, sure… but it's not like it happened over night. I was falling for Jo when Iz was still here. I was in love with Jo for at least a month before we got together."

"And now you're having a baby…" She finishes the stapling. "I'm just saying… you should just start thinking about her. Not saying that you're a bad boyfriend but… you should just think about her. When you think about how you feel in a certain situation… just turn around and think about how she's feeling. Ask yourself… say 'I'm happy. This situation makes me happy. But how does it make Jo feel?' Just ask yourself that. The two of you SUCK at talking to one another, that's a given. I'm telling you that you guys will never last if you don't learn how to communicate."

"But she's happy though." I start putting gauze on the kid's chest. "She never said if she's unhappy or happy with me. I think she's happy… I mean… you're right, obviously. I don't know how to talk to her. Jo and I are so much alike, it's like I fell in love with myself. And sometimes it's annoying to have someone so much like you. She's just as stubborn and headstrong as I am and she's just as crappy at communicating as I am. And the two of us are supposed to raise a child together…"

"Well you guys have months to figure it out."

"Yeah…"

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

I stare down at the carpet of the waiting room. It's brown with little flecks of blue splattered in it. It's ugly carpet but the ugly carpet matches my ugly mood. I'm just really not prepared to go into this room for Dr. Maxwell to tell me that my baby died. _I know you're probably not there anymore. I know, okay? But I mean… I think I should just let you know that I do love you. I always have loved you and even if you're gone now, I'll always love you. _Very discreetly, I slide my palm over my stomach and rub it with my thumb. _I won't have any more babies either. I promise I won't have anyone to replace you. I love you peanut. _I sigh and look around. Dr. Torres and I are the only ones in the waiting room. I think the waiting room should be empty because in all technicality, I don't have any business being here. I don't have an appointment with Dr. Maxwell. She was on her lunch break and she pushed an appointment back in order to see me. It's only 10:00 in the morning. She took an early lunch just so she would be able to see me today.

The door opens up and Dr. Maxwell is standing in the doorway. "Come on back, Jo." She's smiley and chipper just like she usually is. I wish I had it in me to be smiley and chipper too but I just don't. There's nothing for me to be happy about anymore. I reluctantly peel myself up off the chair and walk back towards the room. Dr. Torres gives me a soft pat on my back for reassurance and gets up as well. She walks off in the other direction though to leave. She got paged 911 about five or ten minutes ago but she ignored it just to wait with me until Dr. Maxwell called me back. I told her that she didn't have to wait until I was done here because she was willing to. I just didn't feel right to have her ignore a 911 page for me, you know? So she left and I'm alone again. It's fine. I've done most of the stuff for this baby alone anyway. With my hands in my pockets, I lifelessly stalk back through the door to go into an exam room. I know I'm gonna end up crying in here. I know I am. "So what's the emergency? What's going on?" She steps aside and lets me go inside the room first.

I sit up on the exam table and compose myself enough to tell her everything. "…I was having pains. Like…a lot of pressure and sharp, crampy pains down in my abdomen. But I have this baby book that I've been reading and it said that pains are normal in the first trimester. And I was spotting and they said that it was normal too. So I just didn't think anything of it." I'm crying already. "So I didn't call you because I thought it was okay and it was bearable. The pain wasn't unbearable. But I woke up this morning with pains. No pressure, just pains. And it was so sharp and intense and it WAS unbearable. So I went to the restroom about an hour ago and when I wiped myself, there was some more blood. I… I think I lost my baby. I'm pretty sure I had a miscarriage." I wipe my tears and try to pull myself together. I'm so beyond upset. "So I guess I'm just here for you to confirm everything."

"Alright. And when you wiped yourself, how heavy was that blood? Was it really dark or light? Was it just a little discharge or was it constant, flowing like a period?" She motions for me to lay back and I do. I lay back flat against the exam table and let her do whatever she needs to do to confirm the miscarriage. She lifts up my scrub top and puts her hands on my belly. She pushes down on my stomach. "And the pains… are they duller or stronger the closer I get to your vagina?"

"…Stronger. It's like a real bad stabbing pain but then it dulls out to like…an ache." I look up at the ceiling, the lights blurry because I'm crying. "And the blood was light. It was really… it was pinkish. It was only a little bit but I felt like I had to like… I felt some pressure… like I had to use the bathroom but when I sat down to use it, nothing came out… it was like I'm constipated…and then I wiped and I walked a little bit and the pains went away."

"Okay honey and when is the last time you've had a bowel movement?" She's still pushing on my stomach. "You could very well be backed up, that's a possibility. And that can be dangerous for anyone, not just pregnant women." She takes her hands off my stomach and walks over to the sink. "I need you to undress from the waist down, hon…okay?"

I stand up and untie my pants. "I don't really know the last time I used the bathroom. I pee all the time, at least three times an hour but I don't really ever… poop." I take off my pants and my underwear and fold them neatly, placing them on the chair beside the exam table. She's gonna take the rest of the baby out. I actually saw this happen in med school once. It was on a video. This woman had a partial miscarriage and her OBGYN had to extract the rest of the baby because it wasn't passing out. I really wish Alex was here for this. I'm not ready for this. I'm not emotionally ready for this. I sit back down on the exam table and put the little blanket over my naked bottom half. I swing my feet.

"Okay, so I'm gonna send you home today with a laxative and a stool softener. It'll be a two in one so it's one pill, easy to swallow." She puts on a pair of gloves and grabs something out of a drawer. "I want you to take tomorrow off as well. You might be a little uncomfortable after today's procedure and plus, the laxative will be working so you don't need to be going to work. I'll write you an excuse to give to your superior." She grabs this long, cylindrical thing and puts something like a condom over it. "You don't have to cry, Jo… it's not gonna hurt. It's less painful than a pap smear."

"…I just don't think I'm ready for you to tell me that my baby's gone." I sniff and cover my face. I know what's coming, so I just lie back against the bed and put my feet in the stirrups. I slide further down on the table and put my hands on my stomach. I'm not ready for this. "…Go 'head. I'm ready." I sigh.

She sits down on a little stool in front of me and squirts a little bit of purple stuff over the cylindrical thing. She rubs the purple stuff all over the thing and puts one hand at the base of it. She reaches over and wheels this cart over to us. She pushes a button on this monitor-like thing and the screen comes on. "You'll feel a little uncomfortable… okay?" She says. I nod my head and close my eyes while she gently, sticks the cylinder thing inside of me. "There we go…all done with that." She twists the thing around inside me and moves the monitor so I can see it. "This is usually better when your bladder is full but… you're freaking out and I'm not gonna ask you to drink some water and wait." She smiles at me. "Here… I got something that'll make you feel better…" She points to the little monitor, which boasts a black screen with grey lines and static-y looking things all over it. Her finger is gesturing towards an empty black spot with a tiny little grey circle in the middle of the black stuff. "That make you feel better?" She asks, smile still across her face. I stare at the little grey circle. "He or she is fine. Sitting there all happy inside it's mommy. It's right there. And it looks good… everything's where it's supposed to be… I have a good visual of the umbilical cord and it looks good and healthy…"

"…He's okay? He's really okay?" I prop myself up on my elbows to get a closer look at the screen. "And that little thing right there is him? He's okay?"

"He's perfect." She pushes a button on the computer thing and zooms way in. "And there's definitely only one baby in there…" She points to the screen again. "All that black space around him? That's amniotic fluid… and it's looking pretty good too. Nice, full fluids…" She double clicks this thing and zooms in a little more. "See that little flicker right in the middle? Right there?" She points at it. I see it. It looks like something's blinking. "That's a heartbeat. He's healthy… you can stop freaking out now…" She's just letting me look at it. "The cramping and the spotting is normal. Your body's making room for your baby. Everything is pushing up so your uterus can grow and sometimes, especially in thinner women, it's painful to have your organs shifting like that. And it can cause you to spot."

"…So I didn't miscarry? He's okay? Peanut's okay?" I stare at the blinking thing on the screen as proof. His heart is beating… oh my god. I close my eyes and lay back down straight on the table. I look up at the ceiling again, tears falling out back towards my ears. I'm crying so hard that my chest is hiccupping. Oh my god. I can't even function. "…I spent the whole last hour and a half thinking my baby was dead…" I'm smiling and crying at the same time. "…Thank you… for showing me that."

"If I didn't, I don't think I'd have you as a patient anymore. You were borderline suicidal there for a minute, Jo." She pushes a button on the screen. "I'll print this out for you so you can have a picture of your little guy or little gal." She gently slides the thing out of me. "You can show your friends and stuff… you have a picture to look at now." She takes the condom thing off the cylinder and throws it away. She helps me sit up. "Stop freaking out now. Your baby is perfectly healthy and I'll see you again in a few weeks. I'll give you an abdominal ultrasound then because the baby will be big enough to see by then. And I'll give you another picture." She washes her hands. "And then we'll meet again when you're about thirteen or fourteen weeks… and I'll be able to tell you what you're having. And then that visit, we'll have a real big photoshoot. How's that sound?"

I nod my head real fast and start getting dressed again. "That sounds great, actually." I close my eyes and take a breath. I really thought I lost my honey there for a second. I really thought he was dead. …That was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. "I'll bring my boyfriend next visit… so you can meet him and get all those blood tests you need from him." I tie my pants back and put my hand against my belly. _I thought I almost lost you, pumpkin. You worried me there for a minute. _

"Sounds like a plan." She opens up the door. "I'll grab you your prescription and you're excuse to be off work for tomorrow." She reaches underneath the computer thing she showed me my baby on and picks up a little slip of paper. "Here you go. First pictures."

"Thank you." I stare at it. My eyes are fixated on the little grey blob. _Okay, peanut. Things are gonna change around here, I promise. Mommy's gonna take better care of you from now on. I promise she is. No more stress for mommy and no more junk food. Everything's gonna be for you from now on. I love you honey. Things are really gonna change. I swear I'll take better care of you. _But to take better care of my peanut, I have to take better care of myself. No stress cause stress can make me miscarry, no more letting men put their hands on me, no more picking Alex up from bars at ungodly hours of the night when me and my baby should be asleep, no more putting Alex first. He doesn't come first anymore. My baby is first. I love Alex but I love my baby more. And I think he's my primary source for stress. So if protecting my baby means that I can't have Alex… then I guess that's what I have to do.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"His vitals look good, the incision looks good, doesn't look like he's rejecting…" I nod my head while I type things into his chart. "He's the poster child for a heart transplant right now. He looks great." I tell the parents. They're standing over the kid's bed waiting from him to wake up out of anesthesia. "We'll continue to monitor him for a while, but so far so good…"

"Thank you so much, Dr. Karev…" The mother 's all tearry eyed. See, this is what I do my job for. I live to make little kids feel better and parents to be happy. I love my job. I think I'll love my job as a daddy even more though.

"No problem. Enjoy your time with the little guy. He's tough…" I shut the chart down and walk outside. I haven't seen or talked to my girlfriend all damn day. I've been in surgeries and all that. I don't even know how her meeting with HR went, I don't know how she's feeling today, I don't know if she's eaten, I don't know if she fed my baby. And I think it's only gonna get worse because I'm planning on picking up extra shifts before I take my boards. I gotta make some more money to support Jo and my baby somehow and I really need to ensure that I'll pass my boards. I told Robbins about the baby. She congratulated me and she told me that she'd help me study hard for my boards and she told me she'll let me pick up extra shifts for the extra money. It seems like everything is just falling into place.

I lean against the nurses' station to put the chart back on the charger. From the corner of my eye, I see long brunette hair approaching me. I immediately crack a smile and look up. It's my Jo. She looks like she's in rare form though. Her face is hard, showing no signs of playfulness. She's serious. I keep my smile though and reach out to put my arm around her when she's close enough to me. But she pushes me away. "…What's the matter, babe? What happened? Was it the HR meeting?"

She shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest. "…You know what I did all day?" She seems… serious. She's not mad, I can tell that she's not. She's just very serious.

"…Weren't you on Ortho? What'd you do all day?"

"….I spent the better half of my day thinking that I miscarried my child." She says that like it's an everyday occurrence. She thought she miscarried? What happened? Is my baby okay? I open my mouth but she won't let me get a word in. "I'm talking, you're not. Don't say anything." She puts her hand up to shut me up and I do just that; I shut up. "I was in so much pain that I couldn't stand up. I sat in the bathroom trying to hold myself together because I really thought that my baby was dead. And that scared the SHIT out of me, Alex." Her eyes are welling up with tears. "And I wanted one person. Not Stephanie, not my mother, not my father, not anyone…. But you. I wanted my boyfriend." She licks her lips. "And so I called my boyfriend. I called my boyfriend, I paged my boyfriend… I NEEDED my boyfriend. But he didn't answer." _Oh crap…_ "So I went up to OB by myself… scared to DEATH… but happy because my baby is okay." _Well thank god my baby's okay…_ "But you know what today did for me? Today put a lot of things in perspective for me, Alex… you want to know why my mind immediately went to a miscarriage?"

"Why?"

"I said don't talk." She puts her hand up again. "My mind immediately went to a miscarriage because I HAVE been so stressed out lately. And I sat around for a minute and I thought about all the things that I want for my baby…and I don't want my baby to die, all because it's mommy was a stressed out mess while she was pregnant with him or her." She runs her hands through her hair. "So I did some thinking… and I thought long and hard about the reasons that I'm stressed out. And I thought that maybe…if I eliminate all the things that stress me out…. then maybe my baby can have a chance." She licks her lips again. "And my mind came back to you. My mind came back to the fact that… I have to hold you sometimes when you cry because you're so messed up over your ex. The fact that I can't sleep peacefully at night without being awoken to grab your drunk ass out of the bar. Or the fact that I have to think every day about the fact that you told me… that I deserved to have been beaten by my ex. And I have to worry that my baby will grow up without a father because every time he gets a little angry, he wants to kill someone and get his ass thrown in jail. And I don't really like the fact that my baby's dad… tells me that he loves me… but doesn't do anything to prove to me that I'm not his rebound girl."

"Whoa, Jo… I didn't—"

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING?!" She screams at me. She's really intimidating when she's mad sometimes, you know? I shut up. "…I know things have been tough for you Alex. I know. I swear I know. And I respect that because I really care about you. I care so much that… I put myself in awkward positions just to make you happy sometimes. I bend over backwards for you. And I'm not pissed because you weren't there for me today. I'm not pissed that you ignored my phone calls. I'M NOT EVEN PISSED THAT ARIZONA ROBBINS JUST CONGRATULATED ME ON MY PREGNANCY, EVEN THOUGH I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL. Nope. I'm just mad that I bend over backwards to make you happy…And you don't give me the same decency. You don't ever think about me. And when I thought about it… being with someone like you… someone that's so emotionally abusive towards me…" She swallows. "Well….that hurts just as bad as being with someone like Jason."

I'm going to leak out some tears. I can feel it. She's telling me that she wants to break up. No… No. NO. She told me she wouldn't leave me. I can't lose her. I can't… I just got her. I can't lose her… "Jo, just wait… okay? Just wait…" I can't talk fast enough. She just can't leave me… "I… I picked up some extra shifts so we can have extra money…and I was gonna ask you to move in with me so the baby can have both of us. Because I love you and I love our child. Okay? And I… I was gonna take you out to dinner… and tell you how much I love you and appreciate you and how much I need you. I need you, Jo… you promised you wouldn't leave. You promised…Please don't give up on me. Don't run… I'll do so much better. I'll do better… just don't leave. I love you…" I reach out and grab her, pulling her close to my body. She's not even hugging me back. "We can do this together… I wanna do this with you. I wanna grow up with you. We can be…great parents. But you gotta let me grow up. I messed up… I was mean to you, I'm sorry. I do a lot of stupid shit. But please…"

"….I can't keep doing this, Alex." She's still not hugging me back. "I just keep thinking… what are we doing? This is all too much…"

"…I'm sorry. Look at me… I love you." I pull back away from her to look her in her eye. "I love you, Jo. And I want you. I always have. Since the first day I met you and I thought you were… the most beautiful woman… even when I didn't like you… I wanted you. And I got you…and I can't lose you. I'll do better. I swear I'll do better…"

"…I just need a break." She puts her arms around me. "I just need a break from you. This isn't a break up. This isn't… I just… I just need you… to… I need more from you. And I need you to give me more. I… I…" She bites her lip. "I _love _you, Alexander. I just need more from you."

"You love me?"

"…So much that I make myself sick because of it." She admits. She told me she loves me… she TOLD me she loves me.

"…I'm gonna do better." I kiss her on her lips. "I was just in surgery all day today…all day. If I knew… I would've…" I kiss her again. "I'm sorry… let's go home, okay? Me and you… my place. I love you." I hold her in my arms. "…Me and you can stay home from work and just hang around all day tomorrow. We can do baby stuff if you want. I'll call off…you'll call off… it'll just be me and you and the baby. Okay?"

"…I'd like that." She nods. "You have to shape up Alex… I was so scared today. I never wanna feel that again… you can't keep stressing me out…"

"I won't. I won't babe… I won't." I hold her so tight. "Just don't leave me."

"…I'm not going anywhere."


	41. If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

"Am I taking you home?" I ask her. She hasn't talked to me since she chewed my ass out about not being there for her earlier. I've talked to her, sure but she hasn't talked to me. She's been communicating with me through a series of eye rolls, groans and sighs. If I'm being honest, I'm still not completely sure what I did to deserve her being so mad at me but whatever it is that I did, she's REALLY pissed. I'm not losing Jo so I'll do whatever I have to do to keep her happy…even if that means that I have to be apologetic when I'm not entirely sure if I've done anything wrong. "…You're gonna have to talk to me sometime." I buckle my seatbelt and start my car, waiting for her to slide into the passenger's side and buckle in herself. She still doesn't say anything to me. "Jo. Am I taking you home?" She sighs and looks down at her cell phone. "Josephine."

She picks her head up and looks at me, biting her bottom lip with flushed, red cheeks. "What." She doesn't say that as if she's asking me what I want; she's saying it as if she's daring me to even tell her. I really hope she's one of those women that are only really hormonal during the first trimester because I'm really not even sure if I'll be able to deal with her bitchiness for the next seven and a half months. I'll run out and grab her whatever nasty food she's craving, I'll rub her back and her feet if she's sore, I'll shave her legs when she gets too big to reach them herself. I'll do all of those things for her but what I won't do is deal with her attitude. I take a deep breath to calm myself down and pull out of the hospital parking lot to start driving home.

"Am I taking you home, or not?" I ask her again. I have this feeling that's telling me that she'll never let me live this down. She's never gonna let me forget that I wasn't there for her when she needed me. Of course, had I known that she was doing through something as heavy as thinking that she had a miscarriage today, I would've been there. I swear I would've. I don't know how I would've explained to Cristina and Teddy and Arizona that I couldn't do a heart transplant but I swear, if I knew that Jo was going through something like that, I would've made it possible to be there. I was just in surgery all day. And I know Jo, so I know what she's thinking. She's thinking that if I was in surgery all day today and I missed out on being there for her and the baby, that I'm gonna be in surgery all the time and I'm gonna miss the baby's first steps and crawling and rolling over and stuff. But I'm not. I'm just gonna work my ass off so that when the time comes for the baby to come, we'll be financially stable enough so that both Jo and I can take a while off to adjust.

"Didn't I tell you that I'm staying at your house tonight?" She puts her hand out in a confused, agitated fashion. She rolls her eyes at me. "You know what, Alex…just take me home. I don't give a shit anymore." She looks away from me and out the window, irritation masking the usual bubbliness in her voice. She's in a very foul mood. "I told you I'm staying over tonight. It was YOUR idea… weren't you the one that suggested I stay over and we can both just lounge around all day tomorrow? Now you're asking me if I'm staying over? Do you listen to me when I talk or do you let it go through one ear and out the fucking other?"

"I was asking because I'm not sure if you want to go home and grab some clothes or not. I know you're staying over…I know you are. But you don't have any underwear or anything over my house…" Even though she's on my nerves, I'm still determined to keep her, so I reach over and try to hold her hand but she snatches away from me. "What did I do now?" She shakes her head and just keeps looking out the window. "Jo, come on…" I roll down my window just slightly because it's getting hot in here through the heat of the tension between us. "How the hell do you expect us to get anywhere if you never talk to me? Talk to me… what's going on?" She shrugs her shoulders. "Don't shrug. I know something's wrong…" I glance over at her then back on the road. Her arms are folded across her stomach and she's slouching in her seat while just staring out the window. Her hair is clustered in waves around her chest and from her side profile, her long eyelashes are just fixated straightforward. "…Tell me what's wrong so I can fix it."

She puts her finger on the button to roll the window down and looks over at me. "…Can you just chill for a second? …Seriously, just chill…" Her voice is back to normal. Back to that simplistic, bubbly, sweet tone that I love hearing. "Let's take a break for a second, Alex…" _She keeps trying to leave me. _Even though I try to keep my face as straight as possible, I think she saw a break in the hardness because almost immediately after she says it, she starts explaining. "I mean a break from all this relationship shit. _Okay, I'm listening… _"Let's take a break from us being in a relationship, us being mother and father…let's take a break. Let's just be Alex and Jo for… point five seconds. Okay?" I nod my head because I know if I interrupt her while she's going on, it'll cause an argument. "Do you want to be with me, Alex?" _And we're right back to this? _"Don't roll your eyes at me…it's a simple question." I didn't even realize that I rolled my eyes. "And I'm being serious. Nevermind the fact that we're having a baby and nevermind the fact that I told you that…you know… I might love you…" She clears her throat. Why does she act like loving me is a chore? She acts like loving me is a bad thing… "Nevermind all of that. I'm Jo right now, okay? I'm not your girlfriend, I'm not your… baby mama. I'm just me right now. The me that sat in your living room and helped you pick music for your wedding…the me that tried to teach you how to cry in the tunnels. I'm me. Okay?" I nod again. "Do you want to be with me? Or are you just with me because I'm pregnant?"

"Jo—"

"Because…" She interrupts me. "I'm kinda feeling like this would never be. I don't feel like this would ever be if I wasn't pregnant…or if I wasn't just your rebound or whatever." So Cristina and Meredith and April all were right. She DOES feel like my rebound. "This is all happening so quickly, Alex… and I don't want you to feel like this is forced, you know? 'Cause I don't want to end up like her." I think "her" in this case is Izzie. "I don't want you to feel like you're trapped with me and unhappy… because that's what loving someone is, I think. I think loving someone means that you just want to see them happy and I do…Baby, I do. I want you to be happy and I don't want you to be sad again. So if you're only with me… because I'm having your baby… then just say it right now. 'Cause I don't feel good about this. I don't feel like you're genuine."

"Okay, my turn to talk now." I hold my hand up at her the way she always does when she tells me to shut the hell up. She doesn't even argue with me about shutting up. She just does. I think that's a big step, by the way. The fact that Jo and I both suck so bad at communicating with one another but the fact that she's gonna shut up and let me talk is a step in the right direction, I believe. "You don't think I learned my lesson with Izzie?" I'm not gonna beat around the bush and sugarcoat anything. I'm gonna be blunt and straight up with her…and I hope it doesn't bite me in the ass. "I learned a hard but valuable lesson with Iz, Jo… I did. And please believe I wouldn't entertain you if I wasn't serious. Can I be honest with you?" I ask first before I throw everything on her, just out of courtesy. She nods her head. "I think we moved too fast." She shrugs and nods at the same time, suggesting that she agrees. "We moved way too fast and that's my fault. Izzie left me and that gave me an opportunity to be alone…I didn't want to be alone so I jumped into it with you, and in that sense—yeah, you are my rebound." Her jaw drops but I told her that I was gonna be honest. "I got with you because I didn't want to be alone and that's the truth. But Jo… I swear to you… no matter how messed up my head is, I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you. I got with you because I didn't want to be alone but that isn't it. That's not it. I'm still with you because I'm crazy about you. And that night…when you came to see me because I called you after she left me? That night, I just wanted you because I was alone and you were the next best thing. But I sat with you that night and you showed me the kind of person you…are… and I'm head over heels. I fell hard for you. I didn't mean to…'cause I was falling for you back when I was still supposed to be getting married. I fell for you, babe. I fell hard as hell and I'm serious about that. Don't you ever question me about that."

"…So you only wanted me…because you didn't want to be alone?" I'm not looking at her but I can tell by the way her voice sounds that she's either crying or close to it. "…And now we're having a baby…so that's why you're staying…"

"Not what I said! Damn Jo…will you let me finish?!" She took this completely out of context. "I'm not gonna lie to you. I care about you way too much to sit here and lie to you so I'm gonna be honest. The only reason I called you over is because I didn't want to be alone, yes but I could've called ANYONE. I could've called Mere or Cristina but I didn't. I called YOU because YOU are what I wanted. I wouldn't be with you if I wasn't entirely sure because I would HATE myself if I hurt you. And please believe that the baby has nothing to do with it. We're nixing the baby, remember? The baby isn't a factor right now, remember? We're Alex and Jo, not mommy and daddy…like you said." She's really upset. "I'm with you because I'm crazy about you. You're it for me and I know it. I want to be with you, forever, whenever, always. Always, babe… you hear me?"

"…So how am I supposed to trust you? How am I supposed to just believe you when you say that to me? How am I supposed to be sure that I'm different from her? Alex, you threw away… YEARS with her…for a month with me. What if next year, another class of interns comes up and someone catches your eye? Then what? I'm stuck with your baby while you leave me for someone else? You've done it before, am I your next victim?"

"You're just gonna have to trust me 'cause…" I reach over and grab her hand once again, and this time, she lets me. "When you know, you know. And I know. I know every time I look at you, that's how you're different from her. When I look at you, I can't imagine myself with anyone else but you. And I swear to god if you tell anyone that I'm this soft around you, I will kick you off Peds and tell Hunt to put you on a boring service. You better not tell anyone this." I squeeze her hand though. "I'm crazy about you. It's that… can't eat, can't breathe, can't sleep type of shit…"

"…I just need you to reassure me sometimes. It's insecurity, I know… but can you blame me?" She sighs. "…I don't like opening myself up to this kind of thing. But it's like…I have to now, you know?" She's crying. I keep one hand on the steering wheel and bring the one I was holding her hand with up to her face and brush the tears off her cheeks. "I'm having a baby and I'm feeling this new kind of love for another person and in turn, that's making me have these new feelings for you…and I hate opening myself up for this kind of thing Alex, because…these things don't usually end well for me. Love and relationships, I mean. They don't usually end well for me…"

"Don't lump me in a category with Peckwell or the jerk that…did that to you." I can't even say the word _rape. _It makes my blood boil every time I think about the fact that somebody held her down and listened to her scream while they had sex with her. It makes me want to kill somebody but I'm trying to become a better person for my child. I could really kill somebody over Jo though, I don't care how long ago it happened. I'll still kill somebody over her. "I'm not everybody else, Jo. I'm me. And I'm different. And this isn't like every other time you opened yourself up to somebody. I'm not gonna hurt you. You're good with me. I swear to god, you're good with me."

She scoots over just a little bit in her seat and puts her head on my shoulder as best as she can. She traces my forearm with her index finger and just lays on me. "…So yeah… you can take me home so I can grab clothes. She nods her head against my shoulder. "Wait…" She lifts her head up just as I'm about to turn up the road to take her home. "…Why don't we go there?" She takes her finger off my forearm and points at a building through the front windshield. "Just for a little while? It's only…" She glances down at the clock on the dashboard. "Eight o'clock. Why don't we just…go and look around? You said you wanted to…"

"We don't have to go just because I want to. We can just go home." I look at the building she's pointing at. It's light brown, made of stone. In lit-up blue letters, the sign reads "Carter's" and below that in lit-up green letters, it says "babies and kids". In the wide front window is a red sign that boasts "50 TOP 60% OFF" in white lettering. I'll admit; it is pretty tempting to just go in there…and I _do _have about 200 or so bucks in my wallet… "Let's just go home." After the day that she had though, I don't think she needs to go into a baby store. I already know how Jo feels about buying stuff. She doesn't want to buy stuff right now because it's the first trimester and if she goes in there with me and witnesses the way I blow all my money on shit for the baby, she'll feel some type of way. She just doesn't want to have to deal with taking all the stuff back and throwing it all away if she miscarries and I totally get that. But she's not gonna miscarry. The baby's gonna be fine.

"…No, let's go. I want to. Let's just…go look around. Get an idea of what we're gonna need and stuff." She sounds like she's okay enough to go in and look around. I just don't want to overwhelm her, you know? Especially since she told me that she spent the day worried that our baby was dead. I don't want baby shopping to be overwhelming for her. She's still staring at the store. I mean, if she's offering… I gladly put my turn signal on and pull into the parking lot of the store. I throw the gearshift in park and shut the car off. She gets out first so I get out as well. I lock my car up behind us and start walking next to her, into the store. I hold the door for her and she walks in first. "…How do we know where to start?" She stands near the entrance, just looking around. "There's so much…"

I grab a shopping cart because I DO plan on spending money in here tonight. "I'd just go from aisle to aisle." I slide my hand inside hers and start walking. She's a little reluctant to walk so essentially, I'm dragging her while I'm walking. "Do you want to go home?" I just think it's right to ask. She seems a little apprehensive about being in here all of a sudden. "Jo? You wanna go home?" I ask again because she didn't answer the first time. She shakes her head. "Alright… come on then." I gently pull her along down the first aisle, labeled as "O-3 months." She's looking around as I'm dragging her. "We'll need receiving blankets…lots of 'em." I pick up a pack of five of them. They're all gender neutral, too. They're all pastel shades of yellows, greens and faint blue. "You pick out a pack…"

"…We're buying stuff? Alex, I just wanted to look around…" She shakes her head. "We don't have to spend money tonight… I just wanted to come in here and…" She tucks her hair behind her ear. "Hopefully just… get excited about him. And see how much I'll have to save…"

"Don't worry about money. I got it." I pick up another pack of receiving blankets and look inside the pack to make sure there's nothing too girly or too boyish. "Our baby will be very well off… I got it." The pack of blankets I have in my hand right now are all white with various patterns of elephants, polka dots and yellow stripes. "I already started buyin' stuff…I figure…" I drop the second pack in the cart and push it down the aisle a little more. "If I pick up like… a hundred bucks worth of shit every paycheck until the baby's here, we should be good. Save for the crib and the car seat and the stroller."

"…I'm not gonna let you buy everything." She stands back and looks at the onesie sets they have laying out. "…Oh my god."

"What, babe?" I turn around to see what she's looking at because I was too busy pricing up these big fleece blankets and looking for one that's gender neutral. She has her hands on a white onesie with little ducks and sheep patterned all over it. "What's the matter?"

"…Is he really gonna be this little?" She takes the onesie off a hanger and holds it up. "…This isn't gonna fit anyone. And it says it's for newborns…looks more like it's for a fetus. Look how teeny…"

"Yeah, she's gonna be pretty little." I turn my attention back to the blankets. I really wanna get baby girl one of these blankets. They're made of plush and they're really soft for her skin. It'll be a good blanket to put in her crib. "…Do you like those onesies?" I pick up a brown blanket and run my fingers along the fabric. It'll be soft enough for baby girl. "Stick 'em in the cart if you like them." I toss the blanket in the cart and look at her. She's filing through the onesies since it's a pack of four. As soon as she looks like she might put them in the cart, she puts them back. "…Babe, if you want to get the onesies, get them. She's gonna need clothes…"

"…I don't like them." She shakes her head. She's being really weird. It looks like she's sweating. "I didn't like them…"

"What's wrong with 'em?" I pick them up and look at them. They're all cute. The white one with sheep and ducks, there's a yellow one with white stripes and the word "so cute" written in grey letters, there's another white one with a duck in the middle and yellow trim all around the legs and the head hole and there's a light grey one that says "I love mommy" on it. "They're cute…"

"…No. I'm gonna keep looking…."

"Which one didn't you like?" I put them back and help her look around. I want to know which onesie in the pack she didn't like so I can steer clear of buying one similar.

"…That…" She bites her lip. "The… 'I love mommy' one. I don't really…" She shrugs. "It feels weird."

"Why?"

"…Because what if he doesn't love me? Then he has an advertisement all over his clothes and… I'm not… really… a… mommy."

"But you're gonna be." I tuck her hair behind her ear so it's out of her face. She's really freaked out about becoming a mother, I can see that. I thought she was just saying it because she didn't want to get too attached to the baby at first, but now that I see her and I see how she's behaving, I know that it's not an act. She's really nervous about being called a "mommy." She literally just froze and got all sweaty at the thought of it. She's looking down at the floor with sweat rolling down her forehead. "Jo, look at me…" She looks up at me. "…You can do this." I wipe her sweat away as well. "I wouldn't make you a mother if I didn't think you could do it. I don't just go around having unprotected sex with random girls. I wouldn't even chance it if I didn't think you'd be a good mother." I kiss her salty, sweaty forehead. "You'll be great. You'll be a great mommy. I can just see it… you're nervous right now, but just wait. When they put her in your arms, you'll just know. And you'll be great." I know that she likes to have her hair played with when she gets upset sometimes, so I put my hands on the back of her neck and curl my fingers up underneath her hair. "You got this."

"…I don't feel like I do." She puts her forehead against my chest and sighs. She wraps her arms around my waist and just stands still for a minute. She's been pretty mad at me today and I haven't even hugged her properly more than once today which is unusual. So I put my hands in the middle of her back and let her have a moment. "I just don't want to fuck this up. I don't feel like I can do this…"

"I'll remind you every day that you can do this. You can do this…" I slide my hands back up to her hair. "I'll tell you every day if I have to."

"…Okay." She picks her head up. "We can get the onesies." She picks them back up. "They are pretty darn cute." She sighs and starts walking some more up the aisle. "I'm afraid I'll buy a bunch of clothes. I see clothes and they're all so cute that I just wanna spend all my money on the clothes and it's pathetic. But why do they have to make all the clothes so damn cute?"

"Well she'll need lots of clothes so spending money on clothes isn't that bad." I walk up to the long-sleeved onesie section. "She'll be fashionable…like her mother."

"Oh, if I have a girl… I'm telling you now, if we have a daughter, I'm buying all her clothes so she'll dress like a mini me." For the first time since this baby has been a factor, Jo's really excited about something. She's smiling, her eyes are lit up and her voice has some pep in it. "I'm buying all miniature versions of my clothes. She's gonna be so fuckin' decked out, I don't care. Tutus, leggings, bows, sparkles and glitter… so much glitter. She's gonna be so decked out."

"Oh, is that so?" I look around at the long sleeved onesies. Baby girl's gonna stay around at my house and the extra room that's gonna be her nursery can get cold at times. I mean of course I'm gonna buy a heater to keep the room warm but still…I want her to be completely warm. "Well if we have a boy…" I look at this pack of six plain white, long sleeved onesies. "He'll be dressed like me. Baggy jeans and sweaters… and nice kicks. You know our son's gonna have real nice shoes, don't you?" She nods. She's looking at bottles on the opposite side of the aisle from me. "How 'bout this?" I put my hand against the base of the stack so I don't knock anything onto the floor while I pull one off the shelf. She's looking at a shelf filled with bottles and breast pumps. I unfold one of the long sleeved onesies I picked up and hold it out to her. It's orange and white striped with a duck on the chest. It has matching white pants that have a duck on the butt. "This is cute…and it's gender neutral…"

She peels her eyes off this breast pump she was looking at and looks at me. "…How much is it?" She takes it off me and strokes her fingers along the fabric. She holds the onesie up to her face and rubs it along her cheek, testing the softness of it. I didn't bother looking at the price tag so I don't really know how much it is. I guess I didn't answer her quick enough because she pulls the tag out of the neck hole and looks at it. "…It's FOURTEEN dollars, Alex… it's not that cute." She folds it back up properly and puts it back. "Fourteen bucks for a t-shirt?"

"It has matching pants and a jacket to go along with it." I grab the shirt and the jacket and the pants and toss them in the shopping cart. She sighs and shakes her head. "What's wrong with you?" I can't tell if she's really being this witchy or if it's just the fact that her hormones are racing. There's no way I'm gonna ask her though. She almost broke up with me two hours ago; why would I push anything? I really almost lost her. "Jo, I said we didn't have to come here. We could've just gone home. I said we didn't have to do this tonight…"

"No it's fine, it's just…" She looks around the aisle we're standing in and sighs. Her eyes are really wide and sparkly and her lips are in a downturned grimace. She's definitely not doing so hot, once again. "…Look at all this stuff we need, Alex…" She picks up a pack of bottles. "This stuff is so expensive. I can't afford any of this stuff…"

"You don't have to afford it." I tell her for the billionth time. I push the cart up the aisle to where she's standing and take the pack of bottles from her hand. "I can afford it so we're getting it. You don't have to afford anything, Jo… I got it." I'm not really into the whole holding hands in public thing, but she's had a pretty rough day and I wasn't there when she needed me today so I'm still making that up to her. I nestle my hand inside hers and start walking up the aisle with her. "Like I said, we can just pick up a few things every paycheck. We'll get everything we need babe, don't worry about the money." She holds onto my hand tight and puts her head on my arm while we walk. "Why were you lookin' at breast pumps?"

She shakes her head. "No reason." Her eyes keep wandering back to it, though.

"…Do you want it?" It's one of the really good pumps, too. The one she was looking at, I mean. It's made with all pure tubes so it's safer for the baby and the milk won't get all gross and cluttered in the tubes like the cheaper ones. It's yellow and white and it comes with a black tote bag. It's on sale for $279.00. I'll grab it for her. I'd have to use my credit card to buy it tonight because I only have $200 in cash on me. But I'll buy it, sure.

"No… I'm fine." She puts her hands in the pockets of her jacket and starts walking towards the maternity wear section. "I don't even know if I plan on nursing the kid yet. I think breastfeeding is a little weird…"

I get Jo. She doesn't think that breastfeeding is weird and she's totally all for it. I know she is because I know how she thinks. She just doesn't want to let in on just how much she loves the baby already. I know she knows that breastfeeding a baby is like…the ultimate form of love. She knows that. And she doesn't want to seem soft or like she's having these motherly instincts so she wants to brush it off like it's too much for her. But I know it's not. And I understand that the whole mother thing is starting to click for her and she doesn't want me to know it. So I'll keep her secret or whatever. I let her walk up the aisle. When she's almost out of my sight, I grab the pump she was looking at and toss it into the cart.

I don't really think buying things is the way to Jo's heart. She doesn't seem like she'd be with someone just for the money, so I get that much. I just wonder… I don't think she's ever had someone to take care of her. I want to do that. I'm far from rich—I'm still just a resident about to start a fellowship if I pass my boards. But I'm also very far from broke. I have money. Enough money to take care of Jo and make sure she's comfortable. I just don't think she's ever had somebody to take care of her. I don't think she's ever had a man that does what a man is supposed to do. So I'm not trying to make it up to her by spoiling her with stuff, but I do want to let her know that if she doesn't have anything, she has me. And I'll take care of her.

I push the cart to the maternity section where she wandered off to. She's looking through a section of shirts. "...Can't they make cuter maternity clothes?" She seems disgusted. "I'm not wearing any of this shit. This stuff is for…" She tunes her nose up at the stuff she's looking at. "Rich people that think pregnancy is a beautiful thing."

"You don't think pregnancy's a beautiful thing?" I smirk at the way her face is all contorted with disgust at the clothes.

"Hell no!" She looks at me like I just slapped her. "Ain't nothing beautiful about me getting fat, my ass getting wide and getting nasty ass stretch marks all over the place. What about weight gain, mood swings, leaking like a cow and having achy feet is beautiful? None of that screams beautiful to me."

"Well at least your tits will get bigger. That's a plus for me." I wink at her.

"…You would think about that." She shakes her head at me. "And to think I love you." She rolls her eyes at me, smiling. For the first time in a long time, I see her as the same playful Jo she used to be. The Jo that used to sit in the tunnels with me and try to get me to shut up about sex and stuff. I missed this Jo. "Come on…let's go home. We spent enough money for one night."

"Yeah, I think you're right." I reach in my pocket and hand her my keys. "Go warm the car up. I'll check out." I don't want her to see that I put the breast pump in the cart. I want her to be surprised by that and I think I'm gonna pick her up some of that real expensive stretch mark cream I saw towards the entrance. It's that real expensive Bio Oil stuff that's supposed to work magic on stretch marks. Honestly? I'd still find Jo attractive if she had stretch marks all over her body. I really would, so I don't think she needs stretch mark cream. But I get that she's young still. She's not even thirty yet and she won't even be thirty by the time the baby's born. She's young and I understand that she doesn't want to lose her figure.

"Alright." She takes the keys and leaves without further question. I push the cart to the check out and dig my wallet out of my pocket.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

I gently hit the egg off the counter and break it apart with my thumbs, sending it spilling out, crashing down into the blue bowl sitting in front of me. I put the empty shell back into the egg carton and grab a fork to scramble the eggs up. I can't cook much… but Alex said he'd appreciate breakfast for dinner. I swear I'll learn how to cook good dinners by the time the baby comes. I'm gonna learn how to make spaghetti, fry chicken, bake chicken, cook pork chops and spare ribs and lasagna and hamburgers and stuff. I'm gonna learn how to cook so my child won't be accustomed to just having breakfast for dinner, since that's the only thing mommy knows how to cook. I reach above my head to the iHome speaker that's resting atop the microwave and turn the volume up. Sometimes, when I have something that I don't really want to do, I listen to music and it gets me through. Like the only way I can fold my laundry and put it away is if I have headphones in.

I spill the eggs out into a pan and wait for them to heat up so I can scramble them properly with a spatula. I'd say today shaped out to be a good day. It started out horrible and that's no exaggeration there. My day started out AWFUL. But Alex made it a lot better and I feel so much more comfortable with everything now. I'm not sure how long this feeling's gonna last though. All in all, I'm just glad that we're learning how to communicate with one another. I mean, that was our whole issue. "Gimme the beat boys…free my soul…I wanna get lost in your rock n roll and drift away…" I sing quietly to myself while I check on the bacon frying in the pan beside the eggs. "Won't you take me away…" I glance over at the space on the counter where I put my picture from today. I haven't showed Alex yet. I forgot all about it. I'll show him when he gets out the shower and comes downstairs to eat.

"And when my mind is free, you know a melody can move me…when I'm feeling blue…" This song reminds me of the one person I've ever had in my life. I remember the first time I heard it. I was sitting in her car and she was taking me back to her house so I could meet her son during my senior year of high school. And this song came on. And I asked her about it and she told me that it was one of her favorites and now it's one of mine. I turn the bacon over so it can cook evenly on the other side. "Thanks for the joy that you're giving me… I want you to know I believe in your song…" Damn I miss her. I don't think about her much, because I'm so busy with my internship and all, but I really do miss her. I wonder how she's doing. "Rhythm and rhyme and harmony… they help me along…they make me strong…" I think I'm gonna call her. Not now, because it's 10:00 here in Seattle which means it's 1:00 in New Jersey back where she lives. But I'm gonna call her…maybe tomorrow. And I'm gonna tell her everything…about my baby. She'll enjoy that. I really do miss Ms. Schimdt.

"Uncle Kracker? Really?" Alex pops into the kitchen donning a pair of boxers and a black wife beater t-shirt. He grabs a piece of bacon off the plate that's already been fried and takes a bite. "Gimme the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock n roll and drift away." He playfully starts bobbing his head and swaying his hips, which makes me laugh. "What else kinda junk you got on here?" He picks up my iPod, which is connected to the iHome and scrolls through my playlist. "Gotta make sure you're teaching my kid good music. None of that cookie-cutter, stupid, teenie bopper stuff." He finishes the piece of bacon and keeps scrolling. "Now see, this is what I'm talking about." He turns the song to a new one and I just listen to see what he's agreeing with. He starts singing it too, which I find kind of cute. "Some legends are told. Some turn to dust or to gold. But you will remember me…Remember me for centuries."

"I do like this song." I scramble up the eggs and turn to him. "And just one mistake is all it will take. We'll go down in history…remember me for centuries." I turn off the burners on the stove and grab two plates for the both of us. "Are you ready to eat now baby or you wanna wait until I get your pancakes done?"

"I can wait for the pancakes." He notices the picture on the counter. "…This from today?"

"Mhm." I pour some pancake batter on the griddle and turn back around to look at the picture with him. "She said that the black stuff is the fluid…and she said everything looks good." I point to the middle of the baby. "His heart was beating right there when she showed me." I look up at the kitchen table for a second then back down at the picture along with him. _Wait… _I look back up at the table again, as a double take. "…Alex, what's that?" I know what it is, obviously. But it was so much money… "…Please tell me you didn't…"

"I did." He's still staring at the picture, not even paying attention to me. "It wasn't that much…. got it with my credit card."

"…I told you not to spend any more money… I would've gotten it myself…" I pick it up and look at it. I kind of did want this thing though. It would've taken me two paychecks to save up enough after paying bills to get it though. I was reading all the perks of it on the little chart in the store. It's supposed to be a really good one. It's supposed to be gentle with the sucking motion and the tubes are all natural and it'll be gentle flow for milk and stuff. It's really expensive because it's really good. "I could've just rented one or something…"

"Why would you rent one when I could get you your own?" He's still just staring at the picture. "I told you I got you, babe…didn't I?"

"…No more spending money on me." I can't believe he bought this for me. I kinda wanna lock myself in the bathroom to try it out. "Thank you…"

"Why are you thanking me?" He puts the picture down and walks over to me. "It's my baby too..."

"Right." I sigh, staring at the marvelousness of it. I didn't want to admit that I'm seriously considering nursing my baby. Sometimes when I can't sleep at night, I sit up and I read about stuff like labor, birth, breastfeeding and which bottles are the best bottles. Don't tell anyone I said this, but… there are a lot of benefits to nursing a baby. If I can make sure my baby's healthy just by nursing him then I'm gonna do it. At least that's something I'll be able to do right. "Still…thank you baby. I'll pay you back…"

"You know how you can pay me back?" He stands behind me and kisses me on the cheek. I mumble a "huh?", just staring at my new toy. I need to practice with this so that when the time actually comes for me to pump with it, I'll know how to use it. I'm gonna read the instructions. "Move in with me…" He kisses my cheek again.

"…No." I shake my head. I already told him no though. I don't wanna move in with him. I told him no on our way back home from my house when he took me to go grab clothes and stuff. I don't want to… not because I'm not ready to commit or whatever. I just don't want to. I like where I live with Steph and I just feel like… we're already moving too fast with everything, can't we just slow it down a little bit and keep our separate houses? I can just see it now. I move in with Alex and then we get sick of each other and the romance goes away. If it's not broke then why fix it? What we're currently doing isn't that bad. I live in my own house and he has his own house. He can buy a crib since the baby will have his own room over here and I'll just buy a pack and play or a bassinet for him to sleep in that I'll keep in my room at my house. We can make this work. I just don't want to move in with him and have things fall apart.

It's not broke so I'm not gonna try and fix it.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: **So this was just a little fluffy chapter. I mean some pretty important things happened but yeah, it was mostly just fluff.

Anyway, how soon do you guys want to find out the baby's gender? like next chapter or two chapters or is three chapters good?

& I'll take some suggestions for girl names as well.


	42. The Overnight

With my eyes closed, I tilt my head back and let the water get the rest of my head wet. I'm thinking about getting my hair cut sometime next week. I've been really taking my prenatal vitamins religiously and I've noticed that my hair grew about half an inch already. It almost touches my belly button and I don't like that. It's disgusting for hair to be this damn long and so I'm not gonna let it stay. I want to cut it at least to the middle of my back, that way it won't be so disgustingly long the more these vitamins continue to make it grow. I cup my hands and brush them over my face. Lately, my boobs have been so sore. They're sore, tingly and they feel really heavy. Did I mention they itch? The skin on them is stretching and that's making them itch really badly but to scratch them means more pain so I just let them itch. I turn around so my chest is facing the shower spray and just stand there, letting the hot water hit my boobs. Sometimes hot water alleviates my pain.

I reach across my body and grab my washcloth off the rack hanging on the wall. I squeeze some liquid soap on the rag and rub it together to lather it up. When it's sudsy enough for me, I start off by washing my arms. I'm so tired; I just want to go to bed. I worked on Cardio with Dr. Yang today and that in itself was draining. I didn't get to scrub in on anything juicy, I mainly just spent the whole day monitoring vitals and putting in chest tubes really, but I'm still so exhausted. I've just been getting tired so easily these days. It's probably because I'm pregnant. Steph and Shane are going over Heather and Leah's house to chill and watch movies and have a drink tonight. They invited me but I told them no. I kinda just want to go sleep and plus, I can't drink anyway. I wash from my arms down to my stomach. I scrub my belly gingerly, careful not to be too rough with it. I look down and watch my hands as they glide across it with suds, just to make sure nothing's different from the last time I washed myself. I wonder if this is normal. I'm nine weeks today and I swear my stomach hasn't even gotten bigger. I just look bloated. I don't look pregnant.

When I'm done washing my entire body, I lean forward and shut the shower water off. I pull back the sliding glass shower door and grab my towel off the rack next to the shower. I wrap my towel around my body and step out onto the rug. I wish Alex could stay in with me tonight. I wish he could come over and we could just hang out together. He's working overnight tonight though. He's been trying to do better with being there for me and the baby and I really appreciate his conscious effort. He wasn't supposed to work at all today but he picked up the overnight shift. We've actually been pretty good for the last two weeks. Ever since I yelled at him about never being there for me, he's been trying. We've been good for two weeks…I just hope this lasts.

He hasn't been nagging me to death about moving in with him, either. He asked me once two weeks ago in the hospital after I yelled at him and I told him no. Then he asked me again later that same night after he bought me the breast pump and the answer was still no. He's left it alone since then which is actually amazing to me because Alex isn't the kind to leave something alone when he really wants it. But like I said…he's really trying.

I turn off the bathroom lights and walk into my room. I drop my towel and walk nakedly over to the space on my wall where I started keeping track. I grab my marker and stand next to the wall. I slide my arm across my stomach to measure it like I always do and make a tiny little line. Next to the newest line, I write the number "9"…right along with the measurements from weeks 5, 6, 7 and 8. The lines from week five all the way to week nine—right now—haven't changed much. I'm not getting much bigger. I sigh and toss my marker back on my dresser. While I'm walking over to my bed to put my clothes on, I catch a glimpse of my naked body in my mirror. Honestly? I usually try to stray away from looking at myself. I know it hasn't changed much yet because I'm still early on in my pregnancy but when the time comes for me to get bigger, I don't think I'm gonna want to see how gross my body is. This is the first time I've really looked at myself.

I twist myself to the side to see myself from a side-view. I guess I do see a difference if I look hard enough. I just look like I'm bloated due to my period or something. I hold my breath and suck my stomach in. When I suck it in, it looks normal. Like my normal skinny belly. When I stop sucking it in, there's just a little tiny potbelly. I turn back to view myself from the front again. The only noticeable change in my body is my boobs. I've been hiding them from Alex but actually…they've gone up a whole cup size since last week. I noticed them growing the night I stayed over his house after we did a little bit of baby shopping. I went to the bathroom after he was asleep and I tried out the breast pump and I noticed then that my boobs were a little bit bigger than usual. I'm naturally sort of chesty…not very chesty but my boobs have always been sort of large for my petite stature but they're HUGE now. And I've been hiding them from Alex by wearing sports bras and hoodies because I know him and I know that he'll try to touch them and play with them but I really feel like if he does anything sexual with my chest, I'll cry. They ache too bad to be messed with.

Don't get me wrong, of course I know that my boobs were going to inevitably get bigger. I just didn't know they'd get THIS big…THIS quickly. I was in a high B-Cup-low C-Cup just last week and they shot up to a high C-Cup. I always figured they'd get bigger when the milk came in…not now. I can't fit any bras except for my sports bra and I can't even wear that anymore because it hurts too bad to have my boobs all constricted and tight. I step further towards my mirror because I think I've noticed something else that's different about my boobs. "…Seriously?" I mouth to myself, fingering a faint pink stretch mark on the top of my boob. "…I can live with the bigger boobs, but why the stretch marks?" I'm not sure if I'm talking to myself or if I'm talking to my baby. I'm done looking at my new body.

I go over to my bed and grab the pajamas that I set out for myself. I pop one of Alex's old wrestling t-shirts over my head and grab a pair of underwear. I already went to McDonald's, I already ate dinner. I just took a shower, I'm clean. I took my prenatal vitamin, I'm healthy and so is my peanut. Steph's gone so I locked up for the night. I'm gonna grab my book and read up about what to expect during week nine and then I'm going to sleep for the night. I pull the blankets on my bed back and slide between the sheets. I reach up and turn off the ceiling light and turn on my bedside lamp. I grab the book off my nightstand and open up to chapter nine.

_Congratulations! You're into week nine of your journey to motherhood. Your soon-to-be-baby is now nearly an inch long—about the size of a grape. He or she is starting to look more human. All the essential body parts are now accounted for; however, they will be going through some fine tuning in the upcoming months. Your baby's heart will be officially divided into four distinct chambers by the end of the week. The heart valves are starting to take shape and your baby's tiny tooth buds are forming underneath tender, delicate, soft gums. The embryonic "tail" is officially gone. Your baby's organs, muscles and nerves are kicking into high gear! External sex organs sit between tiny legs but are not distinguishable as girl or boy just yet. You should look forward to knowing your baby's gender in another few weeks. His or her eyes are now fully formed and decorated with the color he or she will be born with; however, the eyes are still fused shut and won't be opened until around 27 weeks. Tiny earlobes, a mouth, nostrils and the nose are now more distinct. The placenta is officially able to take over the job of producing hormones—a very important job. Now that your baby's basic body structure is in place, he or she is poised for rapid weight gain._

It's so weird to think that all of this stuff is going on inside of me. That someone is actually _in _my body. And it's body is basically already formed…all the while it's no bigger than a freaking grape. How tiny must this little thing be? It's the size of a grape, but it already has a brain, arms, legs, feet, hands, fingers, toes...a HEART. It's just crazy to think that something so tiny is going to have such a big impact on my life. Wait, speaking of big impacts on my life… I close my book and put it on my dresser. I roll over on my side and grab ahold of my cell phone. I push the home button to check the time. It's 8:45 p.m. Which means technically, it's 11:45. It's late, but… I unlock my phone and go straight to my contacts. I scroll through my contacts and tap on the number I'm looking for. I hold the phone to my ear and wait for it. I really hope she picks up.

The phone rings three times. I should probably just give up for tonight. It's late as hell and I know that she's in her fifties so she's most likely asleep but I just thought I'd give it a shot. I'll let her voicemail pick up and I'll leave her a message. I'll just tell her to call me back tomorrow after 8:00 my time if she can. I'm just scared that if I didn't call her now, I'd forget to call her at all. The phone stops ringing after the fourth ring and the line goes silent for a second. "Hello?" _She answered… I wasn't expecting her to answer… now I don't know what to say. _"Hello?" She says again. I feel my eyes stinging. I'd like to chalk my tears up to the crazy pregnancy hormones but I seriously think that I'd cry regardless…whether I'm pregnant or not.

"…Hey." She sounds so different…probably because I haven't spoken to her in almost four months. I'm sure I probably sound different to her as well. I'm just so glad she answered, really. "Sorry it's so late…" I brace my hand against my stomach and sit up against my headboard. "I always forget about the time difference and by the time I get off work, it's already 10:00 in Jersey…"

"Jo?"

"Yeah." I nod my head, wiping my nose with the back of my head. "I would've called you sooner but—"

"Oh sweetheart…" She sounds like she's been waiting for me to call. "How is everything? How are you doing? How've you been? I didn't even recognize your number…"

I can't help but smile. "I got a new phone so I got a new number." I explain. "But everything's um… everything's okay." I don't know where to start. I have to tell her everything… "I'm doing well…"

"Really? So how's the job? How are you adjusting? What's your life been like, honey?" The way she's talking to me right now, you wouldn't even think that it's pushing midnight where she lives. She sounds so lively, energetic. I've never really had someone that's been genuinely excited to talk to me like this before. "I miss you so much, girly… tell me everything."

"Well…" I wipe my face again. "The job is great. I really feel like I'm learning something by being here. All my teachers are just great, really. I'm really learning something from them. I um… I got this surgery. See, around the hospital, they have a tradition where the intern that shows the most promise gets to do a basic appendectomy." I'm so giddy while talking to her. I really should've called her sooner. "And I got to do it. I messed up a little bit during it but it was okay, nobody was mad at me." Okay, Steph now. "And I live in an apartment with my friend. I met her at work and she asked me if I'd be her roommate. So we live comfortably together. Her name's Stephanie and she's a good person."

"So you made friends?" She sounds like she's smiling. I can just hear it in her voice. "I told you you'd make friends. I told you so."

"Yeah… I have a few friends. And I met… two boys." I'll just throw Jason in there. "I was dating one but it didn't work out because he was a jerk. So I met another one and I'm dating him now. His name's Alex and he's really sweet."

"And does this Alex have a job? Is he making his own money and such? And what do you mean he's sweet? Does he treat you alright? Give me details, Jojo."

"Um…" I look up at my ceiling. "Okay so yeah, he has his own money. He's already a surgeon and he makes…WAY more than what I make right now. He's a resident and he's gonna take his boards in a couple months to become a fellow. A fellow is one step down from being the top form of a surgeon." I explain, because she never has understood how the ranks go. She understands that I'm an intern and after I complete my internship, I have to do a residency but she doesn't understand beyond that. She's a home-ec teacher…she doesn't have to understand these things. "He's a pediatrician. He makes lots of money."

"Oooh… a baby doctor?" She approves. "So since he's already a…real doctor, does that mean that he's older than you? How much older than you is he?"

"He's 32…only four years older." I explain. "And he's really good with kids, obviously. But he's nice to me as well. He treats me good. If we… If me and him work out, I'll let you meet him someday. We'll pack up and fly out to Jersey to come see you someday, I promise. Or I'll Western Union you some money for plane fair and you can fly out here. You'll love Seattle. It's rainy, but it's so beautiful. It's so much different from Jersey. It's so beautiful here."

"I'm gonna come see you, I promise. Maybe over the holiday breaks. They're giving the kids three weeks off for Christmas this year to account for snow days. Maybe I'll fly out to come see you around the holiday, when I can be off work."

"…So I'll be flying you out twice, then. Once for Christmas and once late April or early May."

"Why twice?"

"…Okay, so…" I brush my thumbs along my belly. "I do want to see you for Christmas. But if I had to choose, I'd rather you come late April or early May instead. I need you here then more than I need you here for Christmas."

"I can make both happen sweetie, that's not a problem. But why do you need me in the spring?"

"…Me and my boyfriend… we're gonna have a baby. And I'm due on the first of May. I kinda want you to be here to meet him…"

"…Oh my goodness." She will never say "oh my god". Never. She's really into the church thing and she doesn't believe in taking the lord's name in vain. For as long as I've known her, I've never heard her say anything of that nature. Ever. "Are we happy about this? Are we happy? I know you never wanted babies but did he change that up for you?"

"…I mean…" I shrug my shoulders to myself. "I wasn't happy at first. And I'm still not…like…overjoyed. I'm not as happy as married couples that want to start families are when they're having babies, you know? I'm not overjoyed but I'm not mad or sad about it anymore. He's coming whether I want him to come or not so I might as well get used to it. I wish I waited and I wish I wasn't still just an intern but Alex is financially able to support a baby. He said he'd take care of the both of us so…" I sigh. "So yeah, we're happy about it."

"…Awwwww!" She squeals in my ear, which makes me smile. Ms. Schmidt really likes babies. She has a granddaughter of her own and I'm pretty sure her son's wife is knocked up as well. Babies make her heart melt. "I'll definitely be coming out there to see that baby. Definitely." I'm smiling so hard right now. "So you're having a little guy?"

"I don't know yet. I feel like it's a boy so I've been calling it a boy until I find out for sure. I'm only nine weeks and we can't find out until like…fifteen weeks or something like that. So I don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet."

"You let me know what you need, you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I'm serious, Jo. You let me know if you need anything. I'll either buy it online and ship it to you or I'll send you the money for it. I don't care what it is; if you need it and the two of you can't afford it, you let me know. Stroller, crib set, car seat, diapers…anything. You let me know."

"I will."

"And keep me updated, please. Don't wait another four months to call me up. Keep me updated on you and that baby. And text message me your address so I can send you some stuff."

"Okay."

"…I'm so glad you called me, Jo. I was worried about you. You're a very smart girl and you're strong and independent and you're very capable of taking care of yourself… but I don't like not hearing from you. I'm so glad you called me, sweetie."

"I'm glad I called you too…"

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

It's a slow night; so slow that both Avery and I are literally sitting on the PICU looking at things on the computer. I'm not complaining that it's slow though. I'm so tired that I'd take a slow night over a busy night right now. I haven't worked an overnight since intern year. I've worked late shifts and early shifts but I haven't worked a true overnight since I was an intern. But I'm pushing through it. I calculated up what my next paycheck's gonna be and it looks like it's gonna be about $5,000 before taxes with all the extra shifts I picked up this pay period. The next time I get paid will be in two weeks and Jo will be going on her twelfth week by then. Thirteen weeks is when the first trimester is over so once that's over, I can buy a crib. Looks like I'll be purchasing a crib and a car seat with my next paycheck. I'm bored and sitting on the computer looking up baby names while eating vending machine potato chips is really passing the time for me. Avery's eating some type of pasta dish that April brought to him before she went home for the night and he's helping me with the baby name thing.

"Jo told me I can name it if it's a girl and she'll name it if it's a boy." I scroll through the pink website I'm looking through right now. "But we have to agree on the name." I don't see any names that really appease me. All the names on this website are boring and old and usual, like Cara and Abby and Anna. I don't want to name baby girl something weird and unusual, but I don't want to name her something simple like Anna. "How do you even choose an option? How do you make sure you don't screw the kid over with a bad name?"

"I dunno." He shrugs his shoulders. "When April and I chose a name, it just fit. We both agreed on it and it's not up for dispute anymore. And it's the same name because it's unisex. So since we're not finding out if ours is a boy or girl, that's just how it's gonna be. Same name no matter what the sex."

"…What is it then?" I stop scrolling to look at him, hoping he'll give me a suggestion that I can tuck away. Maybe he has a method to naming his kid and if it's a good method, I'll use it as well.

"Harper." He mumbles, shoveling a forkful of the pasta stuff in his mouth again. "Harper Joseph Avery if it's a boy. Harper Catherine Avery if it's a girl." He swallows his mouthful of food. "Joseph after April's dad, Catherine after my mom."

"You're really gonna name your kid Harper? Everyone's gonna think it's named after the award instead of your grandfather." I sigh, going back to scrolling again because he didn't help me out in the least. He and Ape are gonna name their baby after grandparents and family members and stuff and I can't do that for me and Jo's baby. Our kid won't even have grandparents. Jo doesn't know her parents and I'd never name my kid James or Helen. My parents aren't worthy enough to have a kid named after them. I might consider my mom's name for a middle name but it's still highly unlikely. "…I kinda like Nathan…for a boy."

"Thought you said Wilson's naming the boy." He puts the empty container of pasta stuff down on the desk and looks through the names with me again.

"She is…but she said she'll take suggestions 'cause all she can come up with is Mason, Caleb and Coby. She's dead set on making the middle name 'Alexander' though."

"Nathan Alexander…" He tests it out. "Has a decent ring to it, I think." He shrugs his shoulders. "Why won't she name it Alexander? That makes more sense. I think that's the way it ought to be. If our name wasn't Harper, it was gonna be Jackson Jr."

"She said she doesn't want to be having sex with me and screaming out her son's name while she's orgasming… I kind of get where she's coming from." I admit. "I say her name sometimes. Like when she's on top of me and she's doing real good… I say her name. And I'd feel weird if I was saying her name and my daughter's name at the same time."

"…Okay, yeah I get that. April says my name a lot while we're going at it and I can understand how that might feel strange." He takes over the computer mouse and starts scrolling for me. "Kelly?"

"Jo said no Ks." I pick up a can of Dr. Pepper I got from the vending machine as well and take a long sip. "She said no Ks and no Os. She doesn't want the baby to be made fun of…like if her initials are K.K.,people might change it to K.K.K. or if her initials are O.K… that just sets it up."

"…April wanted to name a girl Phoebe."

"Phoebe Freebie… slutty." I chuckle.

"I said the exact same thing." He keeps scrolling some more. "Zoey."

"Zoey… no. I'd nickname her 'Zo Zo' and Mere's kid is already Zola, nicknamed Zo Zo… so no." I sigh. Picking names is actually so hard. "We're getting into the Top Baby Names of 2013." I notice. "Emma… way too basic."

"Natalia." He reads off the list.

"…That's not half bad." I jot that down on the slip of paper I got from the printer. So far, I've got Farrah, Aurora and Natalia.

"Harlan, Harley, Harlow…" He's reading them off to me.

"…Harlow could be good." I jot that down too. Farrah, Aurora, Natalia and Harlow.

"Victoria, Sophia, Savannah, Elena, Gianna, Giovanna, Francesca." He's still just rattling them off.

"No to Victoria 'cause I don't like Tori for short. Sophia would be cute if Torres and Robbins didn't steal all the cute names. Savannah is okay, Elena is old fashioned but I'd call her Leni for short.. but I don't know about that. Gianna is good but Giovanna Karev and Francesca Karev are mouthfuls." I jot down Savannah and Gianna. "Lemme text these to Jo and see what she thinks about the ones I've got so far." I pick up my phone. "Wait, I need middle names before I send them off to her."

"Middle names are easy." He picks up a stress ball and starts tossing it up and catching it. "Middle names just go with first names. Like Isabella goes with a lot. Isabella, Marie and Rose are some common ones."

"…Fuck it, I'll worry about middle names some other time." I bring up Jo's contact and start texting the names to her. She's probably asleep by now because she was really tired today but that's fine. She'll see the text when she wakes up and she'll have the entire day to think about my suggestions.

**iMessage**

**Wednesday, September 29, 2014**

**12:04 a.m.**

**Me: **what do u think about Farrah Aurora Natalia Harlow Savannah or Gianna?

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><p><span><strong>AN:** So what do you guys think? I'm taking votes. Which name do you like best?

Oh, and I'll be speeding this up just a little bit. I have two other major plot things that I want to do before the end of this story (not including the baby's birth in those two) and I don't want this to get RIDICULOUSLY long. So I'll say the baby will be here in about 10-15 chapters or so..


	43. Hell Of A

"You're just incredibly hard to please." He mumbles to me from the other side of the shower curtain. I stare myself in the mirror, vigorously brushing my teeth while I'm listening to him berate me about the fact that he gives horrible suggestions. I was hoping that we could go without discussing his terrible suggestions but he's not letting it go. We almost went the entire day without talking about it, too. Well, not the _whole _day but nearly. I just got home from work an hour ago and even though he got off the overnight from last night and came home to go straight to sleep, we talked twice today and he didn't even mention it…so I thought that by ignoring the text he sent me and not talking about it, he got the picture. I should stop giving him so much credit. "What's wrong with them?"

I lean forward and spit out my mouthful of minty toothpaste into the sink. "What isn't wrong? You have a terrible taste in names." I cup my hands and fill them up with water to rinse my mouth out. "I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by letting you pick the girl name but you're trying to give my baby stripper names and old woman names." I wipe my mouth off with my towel hanging next to his dirty clothes hamper and take a couple steps over towards the toilet. I pull my panties down and sit down on the toilet so I can pee. "And you didn't give me just _one _shitty suggestion, either. All the suggestions you gave me were shitty. Every last one of them was shitty."

The shower water stops and the shower curtain draws back. "Like I said…" He reaches over and pulls his towel off the rack before he steps out of the shower and stands butt naked in front of me. "You're just incredibly hard to please." I close my eyes because even though I've seen him naked before, I genuinely didn't need a full, front-row view of his dripping wet ass. With my eyes still closed, I blindly reach over to grab some toilet paper and wipe myself before I stand up and pull my underwear up. When I open my eyes back up, he has a towel wrapped around his waist and he's standing at the sink twisting the cap off his bottle of aftershave. "What was wrong with Gianna?" He dumps some aftershave into his hand and rubs it on his face.

"Gianna is an Italian name and she's not gonna be Italian." I walk to the bathroom door so I can go back into his bedroom and get ready for bed. I've had a long day on Neuro with Dr. Shepherd. I scrubbed in on a temporal lobectomy and got to hold the retractor. It was a twelve hour surgery and my feet really hurt. I didn't want to complain though, because Dr. Shepherd is borderline legendary and if I would've complained, I would've felt like a weenie. Plus, I don't think he knows that I'm carrying a kid inside me and I'm really not in the mood to tell anyone. "I can't imagine myself calling my baby 'Gianna'. Some little Italian-sounding name for a baby that's not even Italian. And I just don't like it. It's not pretty enough."

"Okay and what's your deal with Natalia? I thought for sure you'd like that one. We could call her 'Talia' or 'Tally' for short." He turns on the faucet so he can brush his teeth as well. "I could see us calling a baby 'Savannah'…you don't even like that?" His mouth sounds full so I'm assuming that he's brushing his teeth now.

I pull back the covers to my side of his bed and get inside the covers. "Natalia is gross. It's too try-hardish. You have to try to say 'Natalia'. It sounds too much like 'Natalie' and that's even grosser. Natalie is an old person name…it would be cute if we were having a baby in the 80s or 90s….it's 2014, can we have something more modern?" I reach over on his nightstand and grab his iPad. "And Savannah Karev is a mouthful and it doesn't sound right. It has too many syllables. Savannah Karev… ew. That's almost as horrible as Farrah Karev. Farrah sounds like stripper name." I open up his internet app on his iPad and tap on the search bar. "I want something unique, Alex. I want it unique but not ghetto or weird. Unique and pretty. Nothing basic like 'Isabella' or freaking 'Madison'."

"I didn't know Aurora and Harlow were basic names." He shuts off the bathroom light and wanders into the room with me. He drops his towel and walks naked over to his dresser so he can grab some clothes to put on. "And you only told me no Ks and no Os. You didn't tell me you wanted something unique." He steps into a pair of boxers. "And define 'unique'."

"First of all, I'm not naming my baby after the fucking Sleeping Beauty. Aurora is a Disney Princess name. Is that really what you want our daughter to aspire to be? A princess?" I just punch in "Baby girl names" into the Google search engine and wait for the results to pop up. "And Harlow isn't bad but it kind of reminds me of a boy's name. And I don't want to seem like I copied off April and Jackson. Aren't they naming their baby 'Harper'? Imagine if we had a girl and her name was 'Harlow'… that sounds like we copied."

"And this goes right back to you being hard to please." He pulls a t-shirt over his head and climbs in bed with me. He scoots over so that he's lying on the same pillow as me. I hold the iPad at a distance that allows the both of us to look at it the same time. "You want the baby to have a name that's not ghetto…but you want one that nobody else has. Am I right?" I nod my head. I tap on the first search result that pops up and wait for the website to load. He scoots closer to me and puts his head on my chest.

"Ouch!" I say in a harsh, loud whisper. "Scoot over a little bit… not on my chest." I gently push him over. "My boobs hurt too much for you to lay on them tonight…" I mumble, still adjusting him so that he's comfortable and so am I. Alex gets a little weird with things like periods and boob problems and cramps and stuff so he's quiet about my boob problem. I told him earlier that my chest was hurting and he got all weird and asked if he should rub them or something but I could tell that he was totally weirded out by the idea of massaging my boobs in a non-sexual way. I'll cut him some slack. I sit up a little more and put my arm around his body so that he still feels like he's lying on me in some kind of way.

"…How 'bout Nathan? Me and Avery were talkin' last night… I think Nathan's cute." He puts his arm around my waist and holds me while he lies on the same pillow as me. Alex is a big baby in himself, to be honest. He always has to be up underneath of me. I have to be holding him while we're lying down together or he has to be lying on top of me in some way. He's a big baby and he tries to act like he's so tough but he's such a big, cuddly teddy bear. "I know you're naming the boy, so I just thought I'd throw that out there…"

"…Nathan." I try it out orally and mentally. _Nathan… Come here, Nathan. How was your day at school, Nate? Nathan…_ "I'd call him 'Nate' for short, probably." I look straight forward at the wall, trying to get that mental picture of the baby boy I was holding in my dream. He looked like a Nathan… "Nathan… Nathan Alexander…" I poke my lip out. "I like it." I admit. "Good job, babe. I like Nathan." I run my hands through his hair. "So Nathan, Caleb or Mason." I put my tongue in my cheek. "I was kinda feeling Caleb for a while there but I kinda like Nathan now."

"Glad I could help." He mumbles with a slight smirk on his face and grabs the iPad out of my hand. "That's the only suggestion of mine you didn't completely shoot down." He pokes the iPad with his finger and starts scrolling through the list of names we pulled up. "Penelope. Persephone. Eleanor."

I crack a smile at the way he's rattling off the names on the list. "…Can we be serious?" I lick my lips and try hard to put on a straight face. We're picking our baby's name, this should be a serious thing. "How about Willow?" No, that's not right. "Nevermind that." I keep looking. I tap the divider so it'll separate it into A-Z. "Abriella, Aaliyah, Aida, Alexa, Alexis…" I bite my lip. "Why is this so difficult?" I scroll thorough the As, past the Bs, all the way to the Cs.

"…Carmen?" He asks. "Mia?"

"Carmen Karev?" I tune my nose up. "Ew." I just ignore the "Mia" thing.

"Yeah, that is pretty horrible." He keeps looking while I look as well. "Carissa."

"No Ks."

"It's not a K, it's a C. C-A-R-I-S-S-A."

"I like the name but it doesn't go with your last name. Carissa Karev… that's a lot." I keep scrolling. "I kinda like Ariella but it sounds like areola and that's just… no." I sigh. "Eli…for a girl? Ew." I scroll past it. "Berkley, Mila, Tristian, Dahlia, Della, Adele, Adella, Delia, Lydia, Nahla, Brody, Soleil, Selene, Luna, Tinley, Mariana… Dixie." I stop after that name. "…Somebody really would name their child DIXIE." Alex starts laughing. "That's not even funny. I thought Josephine was horrendous but DIXIE." I shake my head. "Some people…"

"Poor little Dixie is probably homeschooled." He busts out in hysterics. I laugh along with him. "…Do you like Callie? I saw on the website Avery and I were looking at last night the name Kallie with it spelled with a K. I kinda like it. We saw Kallie and Kiersten. I kinda liked both of those but you said no Ks."

"…You have to look at the big picture, Alex. Like if we have a girl and she goes to school someday, somebody will definitely pick on her if her initials are 'O.K.' or 'K.K.' And I'm sorry, but if somebody picks on my baby, I'm not having it. I'll smack someone's kid and then I'll smack the mother too. I'm not playing that."

"Well, if we raise her right, she'll be able to handle bullies on her own. With a mother like you, I think she'll be far from a punk." He kisses my cheek. "We can't protect her from everything. I don't think you should worry about people bullying our kids."

"You don't get it though, Alex." I put the iPad down and look dead into his eyes so he knows I'm VERY serious. I'm not even close to joking. "I'm not playing with that. My baby has ONE time to come home crying to me about how someone picked on him or her. One fucking time and I'm done. I'll slap somebody's child and I'm not afraid to slap somebody's mom either. I'll smack whoever wants smacked. Nobody's picking on my goddamn kid. You know what bullying can do to kids these days? I wish my son or daughter would come home and kill themselves all because somebody's bitch ass didn't raise their own kid right. I'll go to jail and I'm not joking."

"But Jo, it's gonna happen. Kids are bastards. Kids on the playground are mean little fuckers and it's gonna happen. She's gonna get pushed down on the playground and somebody's gonna call her stupid or ugly or a butthead because that's how kids are. Not everybody's gonna like her, babe. And if she looks anything like her mommy, I can see now that girls are gonna be jealous. It's gonna happen and we can't protect her from that. The most we can do is teach her how to stick up for herself and not let people get her down. If people want to pick on her, they're gonna pick on her regardless of her initials, her weight, her height, her looks…"

"…Okay, you're right. But I'm slapping the shit out of somebody's child if they make my baby cry." I sigh. "…Kallie." I run that through my head. "…Isn't that Dr. Torres' name though?"

"Yeah, but her Callie is abbreviated for something and it's spelled with a C. Our Kallie would be spelled with a K and it's just Kallie…not short for anything."

"…So what do we have so far?" I put his iPad down on the nightstand and turn so I'm lying on my side and facing him. "Kallie and Harlow…and Mia." I reach up and curl my hand through his hair. He has a piece of fuzz in his hair that I meant to pull out for him but I'm stuck on his hair. His hair is so soft. I hope my peanut—no matter what the gender—takes after daddy with the soft hair. "What goes with Kallie, Harlow and Mia? We gotta think of middle names."

"…Kallie Alexander, Harlow Alexander and Mia Alexander. All done. Got the middle names." He puts his hand on my waist and cups his hand around it, as if he's trying to make sure I don't fall. Either he's protecting me or he's trying to grab my ass—it's one of the two. He kisses me on my cheek and smirks again. "...Nah, but if you didn't hate 'Josephine' so much, I'd say… go for Josephine."

"…Kallie Alexandra. That's the closest to Alexander I'll go for a girl." I cover my mouth with my hand and stifle a really big yawn. I'm just ready to go to sleep for the night. "And…Mia Marie. Or how about Harlow Kate?" I have to admit that I'm genuinely excited for this. I just don't feel like any of these names are right, though. The name for my baby has to be PERFECT. I honestly think that Nathan Alexander or Mason Alexander are the perfect names for my baby boy but I don't feel like Harlow or Kallie or Mia are perfect for my baby girl. I still think that I'm having a boy of course, but what if we do have a girl? She needs the perfect name. I really just don't want to fuck this up. His name has to be perfect and her name has to be perfect too. Why am I not feeling any of these names? We still have seven more months to figure it out. I hope we figure out a perfect name.

Alex catches my drift about me being tired just from me yawning, so he reaches over and shuts off the bedside lamp so we're in the dark. "…Have you given any more thought to moving in with me, babe?" I KNEW this was coming. Something in the pit of my stomach TOLD me that he was gonna pull this shit tonight. Because it's ALWAYS something with Alex. It's always something. He can never just let us have a decent fucking conversation without ruining it with some bullshit. I don't know if he knows this, but the more he pressures me into it, the more I DON'T want to do it. "You're always over here anyway, babe. Why not just move in?" He slides his arm around my waist again and lies down on my shoulder.

"Leave me the hell alone about it, Alex." I roll my eyes at him, even though he can't see me through the darkness. "I said no and I said no for a reason…okay? And you're not gonna worry me to death about it. I don't want to move in with you." Why can't we ever just be happy and stay happy? Tonight would've been perfect if we just discussed baby names and went to sleep. If this conversation would've ended after he turned the light off, I wouldn't be going to sleep irritated with him. "And don't try to start shrinking me. Don't try to start telling me why I feel like I can't move in with you or why this is a no for me. Don't start acting like you know me better than I know myself. I said no because I don't WANT to move in with you. Can we just drop the conversation?"

"No…we can't drop the conversation." He sits back up and turns the lamp back on. He's propping himself up using his elbow and he's looking down at me because I'm lying down flat in the bed, preparing to go to sleep. "I'm not gonna act like I know why you don't want to move in with me because I don't know. I mean, I think you're acting like a little kid about it, but that's not my business. I don't get you and I don't get where your mind is at right now if I'm being totally completely honest. I don't get why you insist on making things complicated between us."

"How am I making anything complicated? And how am _I _acting immature? You're the one pitching the fit about me not wanting to move in with you. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you, you should just support me. You should just support me in whatever I do; even if I'm wrong. It's not your job to try and act like you're my psychiatrist and it's not your job to tell me when I'm in the wrong. You should just support me. You should just shut the hell up and leave me alone because I'm really not in the mood to deal with you anymore. I'm so tired of the back and forth between us…and it's always because you like to push the fucking envelope with me. It's like you want to see how far you can push me before I snap."

"Of course I'm not allowed to tell you when you're in the wrong." He shakes his head and lays down next to me, visibly and audibly irritated. "You're allowed to berate me and bust my balls about being a bad boyfriend, but the second I start to have different feelings about something than you do, I'm the asshole. Has it ever occurred to you that you're an asshole too, Jo? Or is it always just me that in the wrong?"

"I never said that we can't disagree. We can disagree all day long, that doesn't matter to me. We're about to have a baby that we're gonna have to raise together. We're probably gonna disagree on a lot of shit as parents and I don't care if we disagree. But what pisses me off is when you decide to keep going with it. When you put it in your mind and say 'I'm just gonna keep fucking and fucking and fucking with Jo until she changes her mind' that makes me mad. Your stupid ass doesn't get that the more you FUCK with me about a subject, the more I don't want to do whatever it is you're asking me to do. Leave me the fuck alone about it. There's nothing immature about you leaving me alone and I'm not making anything complicated by asking you to just shut up for once in this relationship."

"How the hell do you think this is gonna work then, Jo?" He looks at me like I'm literally the dumbest, ditsiest person he's ever encountered. The look on his face is just one that says he thinks I'm an idiot. "You think we're just gonna drag the baby back and forth between houses all because you're acting like a brat about moving in with me? What's so wrong about living here? You're here all the time anyway. You leave your underwear over here, I found a bra yesterday… you have pajamas here, I bought you a toothbrush. You're here all the time already and the baby's gonna have a room here. What's so bad about moving in? You can't possibly think that dragging a newborn baby back and forth between houses is gonna work. You went to the Ivy League, you're not that stupid."

"Because there's nothing wrong with the way things are now!" I raise my voice at him and I really didn't want to. The baby book said I should avoid stressful situations while I'm in the homestretch of my first trimester. But I can't avoid Alex. He's the epitome of a stressful situation. "Yes, I'm here all the time. Yes, I have clothes over here. Yes, I might as well live here…but I DON'T. And I'm happy with the way things are RIGHT NOW. And who says the baby's gonna have to be the one moving? If you have him or her, then I'll come over. If I have him or her, then YOU come over. There's nothing wrong with the way things are set up between us right now. I'm happy and you're happy and that's IT. Why do we have to change something when things are good?"

"Well what the hell is your view on family then?! Do we really want to show our child that a family is a mom and a dad and a kid living in separate households? Don't you want our child to come home with both of us? I want a family Jo… I don't know what you want, but it's clearly not a family. You just want a relationship. You just want it to be me and you plus a baby. The baby should be the center of everything. Everything me and you do should revolve around our child…and you're making this all about you. I knew you didn't care about the kid but I didn't think—"

"DON'T YOU EVER SAY THAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT MY BABY." I bawl my hands up into fists because my first instinct is to punch him. Literally, the first thing my mind went to was punching him in his goddamn mouth for that little comment. "I care about my baby so much that I really convinced myself I don't need you. I don't need you, Alex. I'll do this by my damn self. I'm supposed to be avoiding stress so I really decided that you were out of my life. I did. But then you did all that crying to me and I decided to give your sorry ass another chance. I don't need you…that's how much I love my baby. I'll fucking…" _Calm down. _My blood is literally boiling. "Don't you ever say that again."

"Then start acting like you do. Think about what the baby's gonna need in the long run. The baby's gonna need a mom and dad in the same house. A stable home. Stop being selfish. You've always been selfish and you're way too selfish to be a mom right now, Jo. You need to shape it up. You can't be selfish and be a mom."

"HOW AM I SELFISH, ALEX?!" I'm seriously screaming at him so bad that my throat is burning right now. He's gonna make me cry. I know it's not just the pregnancy hormones, either. He called me selfish. Does he really think I'm selfish? I'm trying so hard not to be… everything I'm doing, I'm trying to do for my baby. I'm trying so hard every day to not be selfish but he still thinks I am? Oh god, I'm gonna do terrible at being a mother. If my best, conscious effort isn't even enough to be considered unselfish, then what the hell? I'm trying and I'm failing… "I'm not being selfish… You got me pregnant and you're the one that wanted me to keep this baby. You did this to me… how am I the selfish one?"

"And of course it goes right back to me." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You act like I knocked you up on purpose. You act like I said to myself while we were having sex, 'I'm not pulling out. I'm getting her pregnant'. I didn't do this, Jo. It takes two." I roll my eyes at that comment. "…What would you do if Iz never left me? 'Cause if Iz never left, there's a chance that I'd still be with her right now." My jaw drops at that. I knew that. I don't know why I'm so surprised, I knew that. I knew that he's only with me because I'm having my baby. He just admitted it. "Would you still blame it on me? If you were pregnant and I was still with my fiancée? Would that totally be my fault or would it be both of ours? Mine because I fucked you and yours because you fucked me, knowing I was getting married?"

I can't even find my voice to say something back to him. I'm so angry, hurt, confused… I can't say anything. I'm dead silent, while he's still talking. "Well… let's see, if it played out that way, the baby probably wouldn't be mine. It'd probably be Jason's because you'd probably be with him… or who knows, what if the baby you're carrying right now is—" I know what he was about to say, and for that reason, I black out. My fist clenches and with one solid, hard movement, my punch lands dead in his mouth. I can't believe I just hit him. Better yet, I can't believe how good it felt to do it. He's silent and so am I. I feel something wet on my hand, so I look down at it. Blood. Just a little bit of it, but enough to make my hand feel wet. "…So we're hitting each other now?" His voice is musky, masked with a little bit of anger. I just look over at him. I still don't have anything to say. His lip is busted straight down the middle. "…Goodnight Jo." He doesn't even bother wiping himself off. He shuts off the light again and settles in to go to sleep for the night.

_Did I really just… _I'm still lying flat in the bed, in the dark. I can't believe I just hit him. Dammit. My bottom lip starts shaking and I raise my hand up to my mouth to stop it. I purse my lips together to try and shut myself up because I know what's coming is going to be loud and screechy and very whiny. I feel like my heart is like…breaking. In two pieces. My chest hurts and I feel so sick. I swear I never intended to hit him. I never thought that I was gonna punch him and I swear I didn't mean it. My whole body is just stone cold and my hands are shaking. I'm so sorry. I swear I thought I was over that. I thought I was done with ever hitting people. My hands are shaking so bad. I can't hold it back anymore. "Mmmmm…." I clamp my hand over my mouth tight to try and shut myself up because either he's sleeping or he's awake and both of those are bad. If he's asleep, I'm totally gonna wake him up with my blubbering or he's awake and he can already hear my blubbering. I hit him. Hard, too. I drew blood. "Mmmmhmmm."

Just as I suspected, he stirs for a second before he sits up. "Shh…" His arm wraps around my waist and he manhandles me, pulling me closer to his body. "Shh…hey…hey…" He pulls me very close to him and forces my head on his chest. His lips rest against my head, probably putting blood in my hair but I don't care. "No, don't cry… Jo, don't cry… don't." I can't help it though. I just hit him. He's the man I love. I love him with all my heart and I just hit him. "Babe, it's okay… I'm not mad." I'm still shaking though. "I deserved that. I was talking out of anger and I got out of hand. I deserved that. I was asking for that." He rubs my back. "I'm sorry. What I said was way outta line… about the baby… that was way outta line." He kisses my head again. "We're good babe…we're good. It was just an argument. We're good." I put my arms around him as well. "I can't go to bed mad at you… you hear me?" I nod my head against his chest. "I'm sorry… are you sorry? 'Cause I'm sorry." I nod my head again. "Let's go to sleep… no hard feelings." He's stroking my arm. "…Hell of a punch." I smile at that but I don't feel any better about it. "Let's go to sleep…"

I still can't believe I hit him though.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"You okay in there?" I make my voice quiet, in a near whisper. I don't work until 12:00 noon tomorrow so I can sleep in but Jo works at 7:00 tomorrow morning so she has to sleep. And she is sleep. She's been asleep for half an hour. Very gently, I lower my ear down to her stomach while she peacefully sleeps. "Sorry about all that yelling and stuff." Her stomach is kind of firm underneath her t-shirt. "Mommy's got a hell of a punch though, doesn't she?" I'm a baby doctor for a living, so I know that babies can respond to voices quite early on in pregnancy. I don't know if Jo talks to her much but in case she doesn't, I'm talking to her right now. "She's amazing though." I press my lips to her stomach, careful not to wake her. Jo doesn't really like to make a spectacle out of her growing stomach, so I usually wait until she's asleep to rub it and look at it. She's a heavy sleeper so it's easy, most of the time. She almost woke up one day last week when I did it though. "…I hope you're not as big of a hot head as mommy is."

Jo stirs slightly in her sleep but remains asleep. "…I hope you're as strong as she is though. Strong, stubborn, knows what she wants…" I kiss her stomach again. "I hope you get that from her. I hope you get her looks, too." I smile at just thinking about how pretty our little girl will be. "…On the other hand, maybe you don't need to look like your mom. Daddy will go to jail for murder." I give her belly just one last kiss before I head to bed for the night. "Goodnight, my sweet girl. I'll talk to you tomorrow…"

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN:** So, Happy Holidays to all that celebrate them! Hope you guys have a nice Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. Enjoy the update for a holiday present lol.

Oh, and for those of you guys who said you like 'Natalie' better than Natalia, I do too. However, somebody PMed me and told me that another Jolex author named their baby Natalie and I don't want to copy, so Natalie isn't an option. Sorry.


	44. What Exactly

A series of three soft knocks break the earsplitting silence between us and the eerie, creaking of the door accompanies it while it opens. I sit up straight because I was sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair hunched over with my elbows on my knees, waiting. I wipe my sweaty palms on my thin blue scrub pants and scoot forward so I seem attentive and willing to be here. It's my first time being here and I want to make a decent impression on the lady. When I was on my OB rotation with Dr. Montgomery—back when she was still Montgomery-Shepherd—I've been present for quite a bit of these things. In fact, I even administered a couple transvaginal ultrasounds in my career. My point being that I've been through these appointments on the other side of the spectrum. I've been the doctor in these situations but I've never really been the patient before. I fondly remember back when I used to do these appointments with Dr. Montgomery. Some of the men that were with the women were visibly annoyed or it was apparent that they'd rather be anywhere in this world than with their spouse or significant other. Me? I'm not one of those guys. I want to be at every appointment with Jo and I'm excited to see what happens today.

A tall woman with long, dishwater blonde hair walks through the door. She's busy looking down at an orange clipboard, so she kicks the door shut behind her and nudges her glasses with her index finger so that they're more securely on her nose. She looks really young. I hope she's not the doctor. She doesn't look like she's any older than Jo is. How many babies could she have possibly delivered? And she's gonna deliver my kid? I wrinkle my brow while I continue to check her out. She gently sits the clipboard down on a counter and finally looks up. ""Boy I'm getting tired of seeing you." To match her looks, her voice is childlike as well as she jokes around with a very silent Jo. Is this chick serious? She's not delivering my baby when she's a baby herself. I'll pay her for all her trouble so far but I need a different, more experienced doctor. "And you have somebody new with you today…" She eyes me, pulling a pair of purple gloves on her hands.

"Yeah, this is Alex. My…boyfriend." Jo motions with her elbow towards me, a half-assed introduction as she hesitates and stumbles over the word "boyfriend" for some reason. This isn't the woman she was telling me about. No, when Jo told me that she chose an obstetrician, she sad that the obstetrician she chose was nice, knew what she was doing and relatable. She never mentioned that the chick was no older than she is herself. "Alex, this is Dr. Maxwell." Finally I break my gaze off of the young doctor and look at Jo. She's sitting on the exam table with her arms folded over her belly, sporting one of those papery-thin gowns pregnant women have to wear when they're about to get a pelvic exam. I lean forward in my chair and rest my hand against Jo's arm, just so she knows I'm here for her. We haven't been doing well with each other for a week. It's not that we've been fighting or anything, because we haven't fought. We haven't fought since last Wednesday when she punched me. We just haven't been on good terms because she's constantly trying to make it up to me. She fixed me dinner the day after she hit me and she kept asking me if I was okay. And the day after that, she kept rubbing my back for me even when I didn't need a massage. The other night, we were kissing while we were watching this movie and she started to go down on me. I wouldn't let her. I don't want her to feel like she has to do that to me just because she hit me. So yeah, we haven't been as good as we can be, but we haven't been horrible. She's just been really apologetic since last week and she doesn't need to be. I know she's sorry and I know she didn't mean to bust my lip open like that.

Despite the fact that she resorted to hitting me, I really think Jo and I are making progress. We're learning how to talk more. I've known Jo for three months, been in love with her for two and a half, been dating her for one whole month. And I know for a fact that the conversation we had that escalated to her hitting me would NOT have happened a month ago. A month ago, I wouldn't have even approached her with the idea of moving in, even though I probably would've been thinking of it. And she wouldn't have had the balls to yell at me the way she did. We're starting to talk more. Even though the talking isn't always good and sometimes in comes in the form of an argument, it's more than what we used to do. I'm not even mad that she hit me. How could I be? The comment I made to her was WAY out of line.

The thing we have to work on is the irritation and the anger we get towards each other. I think that me and Jo are perfect for each other because we are so much alike but that's also the reason we clash. All couples clash and have their arguments, but when me and Jo clash, it's BAD because we're both the same person. She's a hothead and I'm a hothead and two hotheads arguing with each other is always something vicious. It was bound to get dirty between me and Jo and with my comment, it sent her over the edge and she hit me. I'd never hit her back, though. Ever. Jo could punch me, kick me, slap me, STAB me…but I'm not hitting her back. I don't hit girls.

"Cynthia Maxwell, nice to meet you." The prepubescent woman holds her bony little ungloved hand out to me. "Nice to finally get both of you together and stuff. I hear you're a doctor as well?" She's bubbly and nice, I'll give her that. But she still doesn't look like she should be delivering babies. She looks like she needs to go back to med school. I can see why Jo would like her though. Her personality reminds me of Jo's. The bubbliness and the giddiness and the fact that she's personable all remind me of Jo when I first met her.

I put my hand inside the woman's and shake it firmly, letting her know that I'm not like most of the dads she probably sees every day. I'm a good dad. I'm the kind of dad that actually gives a damn about his child. And I'm a baby doctor so she better know what she's talking about. If she says something that I don't agree with, I won't hesitate to call her out on it. She better know what the hell she's doing here. "Alex Karev… pediatric surgery, actually."

"You didn't tell me he was a pediatrician, Jo." She turns back to Jo, sticking the final glove on her other hand with a bright smile. "You didn't think you should mention that to me?" She looks at me from the corner of her eye. "How lucky your baby is, right? With a daddy that's a pediatrician… Luckiest baby in the world right here." She puts her stethoscope in her ears and walks around to get behind Jo. "Now Alex, do you see baby-babies? Or do you start with toddlers? Some of the pediatricians I've encountered don't work with the little newborns…they start with one year olds. Do you see newborns too?"

"I see all children. I can go from newborn to eighteen years old. I work in the NICU in addition to pediatric floors." I shift my position in my chair so I can see what she's doing to Jo. She nods her head at me, presses the stethoscope to Jo's back and listens for a couple seconds before she takes the plugs out of her ears and wraps the stethoscope back around her neck. Jo seems pleasantly happy today. She's been really playful so far. Granted it's only lunchtime but I can usually tell what her mood is gonna be like for the day by now. If she's gonna be in a bad mood, it's usually apparent by lunchtime. She's been pleasant so far which is saying a lot because she is the definition of hormonal right now.

She didn't even want me to come to this visit with her. She scheduled it during both of our lunch hours so I would be able to come but she tried to talk me out of it. She gets weird about me seeing her body. She thinks I'm gonna see her pregnancy body with all the weight and the stretch marks and I'm gonna find her unattractive. I don't know how many times I had to tell her that wasn't gonna happen.

"I did tell you how hot he was though." Jo turns her head to me and winks. She's so smiley today and it's good for me as well. When Jo's in a good mood, I'm in a good mood. Jo's the kind of person where, it's hard to not be in a good mood when you're around her. She has that effect on people…or maybe it's just me. "I told you that he was a hot doctor…with a nice ass. And he's soft, too. A real big teddy bear that loves babies."

"Yeah yeah yeah." I shut her up quickly. I don't need her telling people how much of a softie I am. I'd still like for people to see me as the big tough guy and Jo's blowing my cover. Plus, I don't need her to tell this young ass doctor that I'm a softie when I'm trying to mean business with her. "So can you catch me up, doc?" I want to know everything I missed within the last few visits. This is my first visit ever being with her. I want to know everything about the baby and everything about Jo. I gotta make sure my girls are healthy, you know? "On everything I missed, I mean…" I mumble, for clarity.

"Of course." Dr. Maxwell puts her hand on Jo's shoulder, guiding her to lay down flat against the exam table. "You'll be all caught up by the end of this visit, I promise." She flashes a warm smile at me and focuses all her attention on Jo. Jo lays down flat against the table and lifts her arm up, as if she's been through this a million times before. "So you're in the tenth week…" The two of them are so invested in each other that it's like I'm not even in the room. Good. I'm glad. That's how it should be. It should be all about Jo and all about the baby. The way it should be. "Getting closer and closer to that first trimester being over." Jo smiles and nods, just dealing with the fact that her privacy is being violated by the doctor rubbing all over her body. Good thing she still has the gown on though. "You're not still having those fears about a miscarriage, are you?"

"Not as bad as I used to… it's kinda just like…" Jo's staring up at the ceiling. "I probably will be worried until the first trimester is completely over. Even on like…week twelve, I'll be anxious and nervous 'cause that's just me. But the fear is going away. It's not as bad as it was when I came to see you about it."

"The risk of miscarriage is basically zero after the first trimester, but you're already ten weeks without a hitch… I think you can stop worrying now. You're gonna have a baby." Dr. Maxwell slips her gloves off and tosses them in the trashcan. "Let's open this up…" She puts her hand on Jo's back and helps her up while Jo reaches back and unties the gown. When the gown is undone and loose, she lays back down. "You're still pretty thin…" The doctor moves the gown out of the way, exposing her stomach and only her stomach. She has a little towel draped over her womanhood and the gown is still closed around her chest. She's definitely starting to look pregnant. Her stomach is poking out a little bit but I bet I only notice it because I've been looking and I know what I'm looking for. To someone's naked eye, they wouldn't be able to tell. "You only gained like… a pound and a half. You should've gained at least three by now." Dr. Maxwell pushes her hand down against Jo's stomach. "…I can feel the top of your uterus though, so that's good." She closes the gown back up around Jo's belly and takes a couple steps towards her head. "And how about your breasts? …They feeling different?"

"Yes." Jo nods her head as if she just read her mind. "Are they supposed to ache this badly? And they shot up. I mean, I know pregnant women's boobs get bigger but I thought that wasn't until the milk comes in. They're tender… like to the touch. It hurts to wear bras anymore and they itch."

"Oh yeah, that's normal. Lemme take a look though…" She puts her hands on the rim of the gown to pull it away from her chest. "You don't mind if…" She silently motions to me with her eyes.

"…I guess not." Jo turns her head and faces me. "You're not allowed to say anything though." She points at me with her index finger as if she's chastising me. "You act like you don't see them. I've been doing a good job hiding them from you for this long—just act like you never even saw them." I don't know what the hell she's talking about. She hasn't been hiding anything from me. I should act like I don't see her boobs? She looks up at the ceiling with a strangely uncomfortable look on her face while the doctor moves her gown away from her chest. I've seen her boobs plenty of times before. Why do I have to act like I don't—WOW. As a mere reaction, my jaw drops but I pick it back up quick enough that she doesn't notice that I was gawking for a moment there. When did this happen?! "…I didn't expect them to get this big this quick. I'm gonna need a D soon…"

"The good news is that they're probably done growing so if you buy yourself a good, supportive bra right now, you won't have to go out and buy another to accommodate yourself again. You see, the breast tissue grows and then all the growth space is filled with milk when you start to lactate. So they're probably done." She pushes two fingers against Jo's boob. "Yeah, they are significantly bigger." YEAH NO KIDDING. When the hell did they get that big?! Okay so maybe she has been hiding something from me. But why would she hide this from me?! They're PERFECT. She knows how much I like boobs…why would she do this to me? They're SO much bigger. They're amazing, my god. Can I just… touch them? I'm gonna have so much fun with these things tonight. _Imagine how much fun I could have with them. How long have they been this glorious? _I just wanna squeeze them.

"So they're not gonna get any bigger than this? Like… I can go out to Walmart and pick up a couple good bras and I won't have to go buy a bigger size in two weeks?" I only halfway hear what she just said. I'm way too busy staring…drooling. How did I miss them? She must've really been trying to keep me away from them. She knows how much I like boobs though. "Good." She helps the doctor close up her gown again. "…Shows over, you can stop looking now." She rolls her eyes at me with a playful smile. "…He's a boob fanatic. He really likes boobs and I know…" She sighs. "I knew if he saw how big they've gotten, he'd want to mess with them and they hurt too bad to be messed with. So I've been keeping them a secret." She giggles. "Cat's outta the bag now." _Okay then, fine. I won't squeeze them. I'll just kiss them and stuff. I won't hurt you. HOW COULD YOU KEEP THEM FROM ME THOUGH? _

"You wouldn't be the first woman that kept her breasts from her partner because they're achy." The doctor walks back over to the sink and grabs another pair of gloves. "Everything seems to be measuring right though, so I'm gonna go ahead and get you an ultrasound and maybe we can hear a heartbeat today." She puts the gloves on and sits down on a little black swivel stool. "Then we can schedule your 15-16 week appointment and get you going." Like she's been through this all before, Jo puts her feet in the stirrups and slides down so her positioning is right. "You're measuring pretty small, I want you to gain some more weight but it's nothing I'm too worried about because I CAN feel the top of your uterus and as long as I can feel it, everything's measuring alright. You're probably just gonna have a small baby. I don't think you're going to get very big. Most women are bigger than this at ten weeks." She sets up the ultrasound equipment. "And next time you come in, I might be able to do an abdominal ultrasound. I might not have to go inside you anymore."

Jo's eyebrows furrow a bit for a moment, so I assume the lady stuck that thing up there already. I don't like seeing her uncomfortable and she's CLEARLY uncomfortable with having this thing stuck up there. I get out of my chair because I'm just not close enough to her while I'm sitting and I stand next to her head. "You okay?" I ask her. She nods her head, turning her top half to the side so she can see the screen that the baby's gonna pop up on. "Just makin' sure." I bend down and kiss her forehead and turn my attention to the screen as well. Right now, it's just a mess of grey stuff.

Dr. Maxwell pushes a button on the computer thing and drags a little mouse thing to bring it into focus. I guess she's not so bad. She seems like she knows what she's doing here. I think my girls are in good hands with her. And Jo's comfortable around her, it seems. As long as Jo's comfortable, I guess I'm good. After all, I am a pediatrician and I can step in if this doctor does something wrong during the delivery. "Your fluids are still nice and high." She explains to Jo as she keeps dragging things into focus. She pushes a button to dull the lighting on the screen, and when she does that, the picture we get is…well…breathtaking. I hear Jo gasp, like she's never quite seen anything like this before. I have seen lots of babies on ultrasounds but I've never seen…MY baby, you know? It's a great feeling, I admit. "Not quite just a grey blob anymore, eh?"

"…Oh my god…Alex, look…" I think Jo might cry. She sounds so amazed. "Look…I can see his head…" She brings her hands up and covers her mouth, shock and awe written clear across her flawless face. "Are those his arms? And his belly…he's chunky… look at his leg… Oh my god…"

"I know…I see." This isn't really new to me but it's new to her and it's priceless to see her reaction. The last time she got a picture taken of the baby, it was nothing but a little grey blob on a sheet of black and grey paper, floating around in a mess of black. Now, four weeks after she got that first picture, it looks like a human. It has a head and arms and legs and a stomach and it looks like a baby. I think it's clicking for her right now. I think she's just a little bit amazed at how one week it was a blob and then four week after that, it looks like the silhouette of a human being. "Can you print this out for her?" I think Jo needs a picture of the baby. I want one as well, but I think Jo NEEDS one. Her reaction is just golden.

"Sure thing." With one hand still on the ultrasound wand that's stuck inside of my girlfriend, Dr. Maxwell maneuvers her free hand to grab ahold of the doppler. _Oh, this is gonna be good… _If Jo freaked out over just seeing the baby like that, I can't wait to see what she does when she hears it. This is gonna be great. Maxwell puts the doppler on Jo's stomach while using the internal ultrasound to line it up correctly. "Hold that right there, Alex." She instructs me. I hold the doppler there while she shuts off the ultrasound machine and cleans stuff up. When everything is all tidied up, Maxwell comes back over and pushes the button to turn the doppler on. "…And if everything goes right, you should be able to…" She moves the doppler to the left a little bit and bingo. It sounds like someone's hitting a drum softly, rhythmically. In the tune of something like 1…2…1…2…1…2…1…2.

"…Is that his heart?" Jo asks. I just nod at her, trying to get my own good listen in. "…It's strong." Sometimes, I forget that Jo has some medical training under her belt as well. She's able to listen and judge it the same way I am. "…No murmur. It's strong."

She's right. No murmur. It's strong.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"He had a good heartbeat too, Steph." I hover over her shoulder, pointing out the obvious things to her like his head, his arms and his little legs. "It was strong, no murmur, lot of beats per minute…" I'm in such a good mood today, which is saying a lot for me. I haven't been in a good mood since sometime last week. I've been feeling pretty shitty lately for hitting Alex in the face the way I did but today made me feel so much better. I got to see my baby that actually looks like a baby, I got to hear my baby's heartbeat and I bought a couple boxes of diapers today as well because that's all I could afford right now. I had a good day today and my mind is really off of hitting Alex. But now that I mentioned it…

I really am sorry that I hit him. I didn't even know I was gonna do it. It happened so fast. It was like…one second, I was cool and I was okay with the fact that I was angry. But he said that…he made that comment and I blacked out and lost it. I'll never lose it with him again, I swear to that. I swear I'll never lay my hands on Alex like that again. I'm definitely not proud of doing that, you know? I feel so bad. I think I feel the worst because I know that he's not like Jason. He's not like Jason and I didn't have a reason to hit him and when I hit him, I KNEW he wasn't gonna hit back. It wasn't like Jason where if he hit me, I'd retaliate or if I hit him, he'd retaliate. I hit ALEX. Defenseless Alex... I feel like I hit my baby. I really do. I feel like I spanked my kid and I felt so bad afterwards. Alex is my BABY. No, he's my BABY. Like…I'd do anything in this world for him, obviously. I'd go through hell just to hold his hand, you know? And I hit him. I felt like the biggest piece of garbage afterwards and I was just trying to make it up to him. Luckily for me, Alex is a much better person than I am and he completely forgave me.

"This is such a mom thing." With a smile on her face, Steph shakes her head. I crack a smile at that, because she's right. It is a mom thing. "All moms shove their baby's pictures down people's throats and gawk at how cute it is. You're bragging about the kid and it's not even born yet." She keeps staring at the picture right along with me though. "…It is cute though. It's real cute." She cracks an even bigger smile. "…Awwww I can't wait to meet my Mr. Man. Jo, you need to hurry up and have him. I'm so serious. I can't wait to meet him."

"…I love him to death but I'm not ready to meet him yet. I can't wait to meet him either, but I'm not ready. I still have a lot of preparing and growing up to do before I meet my peanut. He can stay right where he is for six and a half more months." I sit down on the couch next to her because my back is starting to hurt from standing up. "My little Nathan…." I can't stop staring at the damn picture either. I'm glad I have a name to actually call him now. Me and Alex decided that Nathan is the name for a boy. His name is definitely gonna be Nathaniel Alexander Karev if he's a boy. We're still up in the air about a girl's name though.

"And if it's a girl? Have you guys even put any thought into what if it's a girl? You've been calling it a him ever since you found out you were having him. You'll be pissed if it's a girl." Steph hands me the picture back and unpauses the episode of Saturday Night Live we were watching before I had the idea to show her the picture.

"I won't be mad if it's a girl. If it's a girl, she'll be my little twin." I poke my lip out just thinking about how pretty my girl would be. "And it's okay, because I call it a boy and Alex calls it a girl. He's always referring to it as 'his girl' or 'baby girl'. One of us is bound to be right." I shrug my shoulders. "But we can't agree on shit for the girl name. Which is why I'm kinda hoping it's not a girl. We can't agree on a girl name to save our lives. He likes Harlow and Brody. BRODY, Steph. BRODY. Brody Jo, he wants to name her."

"…Oh my goodness." She shakes her head. "…Do you need some help? I mean, I can try. I'm no good with baby names myself but I can try. Is there anything in particular you want? Like… any inspiration?"

"…No. I'll take anything at this point. Just not Brody. Harlow's pretty… we're thinking Harlow Kate. I want something…unique. Something nobody has but it's not too unheard of, you know? Like Jacey. Jacey's not too unheard of but it's unique. But I don't like Jacey."

"Okay, so… I knew this girl in high school named Layla. It's not unheard of."

"…No. Layla Karev… no thanks to that."

"I knew another girl in school named Shyla."

"…I said not ghetto. I mean… Shyla's not really ghetto but…it seems like something's missing. Shyla… what? Shyla…Marie. Shyla…Rae? Ehh…no. Not feeling Shyla. Next."

"Cameron."

"No." I shake my head. "But I like the whole 'Cam' thing. That's starting off pretty."

"Cambry?"

"C'mon Steph."

"…Camilla then?"

"…Something about that name just doesn't feel right." I shake my head at that. (**A/N: **lol, just a little lighthearted humor)

"Reese? Regan?"

"…I like Reese and Regan." I try them out. _Reese Karev…Regan Karev… _"No they don't sound right, never mind."

"Kylee?"

"No Ks. No Ks and no Os. I'm not having a K.K. or an O.K. My baby will not be made fun of."

"Ariel?"

"Not naming my baby after the Little Mermaid, Steph."

"Jeniya?" She's reading off her phone. No wonder that was stupid. "It's French for genie."

"No…"

"Angelle?" She looks up. "It's French for Angel. But pronounced like 'On-Gel.'"

"You're really not helping, Steph."

"I'm in the Ms." She shows me her phone. "Marcy, Mariah, Margot, Margaret, Maxwell…Maliah, Mary, Marie, Melanie, Myla, Mylani, Mercy…"

"Wait…Mercy." I try it out aloud. "Mercy… Mercy. How about 'M-E-R-C-I?" I sigh. "Nevermind. Keep going."

She starts rattling them off again. "Stefani. Like… Gwen Stefani." I bust out in laughter at that. "Skylar, Samantha, Summer, Sophia…" She scrolls all the way back to the top. "Oooh, I like Ellisyn. Call her 'Ellie' or 'Ella' for short."

"Why is picking a girl name so much more stressful than picking a boy name? I don't even get it." I shake my head. "I'm really struggling with this, Steph." I'm starting to get a headache so I'm done thinking about names for the night. "I'm done with this for now. Maybe it'll just come to me." I sigh and start watching the TV. "…I'm never gonna be able to go out with you and Leah and Heather and Shane again, you know that? I'll be all mommied out."

"That's not true." She points the remote at the TV and turns it up. "You can still be a good mom and go out with us sometimes. Just don't make it a habit to go out." She looks over at me. "You're gonna be a total MILF, Jo… you're gonna have to come out with us."

I laugh at that. "I'm gonna be a MILF?"

"Total MILF." She smiles, shaking her head at me like I'm too much for her to handle. All of a sudden, music starts playing off the TV and she gasps. "I LOVE THIS SKIT!"

"Me too!" I really do love this one. It's my favorite one. With Justin Timberlake and The Lonely Island in it. I memorized all the words. "Wait….wait…" I'm gonna sing it for her. And lucky for me, it looks like she's gonna sing with me. I clear my throat and make my voice real deep so it sounds like I'm singing in a guy's voice. "Girl you know we've been together…such a long long time."

Steph makes her voice all deep too and sings along with me. "AND NOW I'M READY TO LAY IT ON THE LINE…"

"Well…you know it's CHRISTMAS…AND MY HEART IS OPEN WIDE…" I snap my fingers, acting like I'm really performing. "Gonna give you something so you know what's on my mind…"

Steph is dying of laughter. "A gift real special… so take off the top…. take a look inside…"

We both say the next part together. "IT'S MY DICK IN A BOX!"

"Not gonna get you a diamond ring…that sort of gift don't mean anything… not gonna get you a fancy car…girl you gotta know you're my shining star…" I'm having fun with Steph. Just sitting here and singing along to a stupid skit with her. And I'm having fun…but now I'm scared.

"Not gonna get you a house in the hills…a girl like you needs something real. Wanna get you something from the heart… somethin' special girl…it's my dick in a box." She finishes off the last singing part. I'm scared now. Like…what if I can never do this again? With a baby? What if I'll never be able to have fun with Steph like this again? I'm gonna be a mom…that doesn't leave any room for me to be immature.

What exactly does being a mom mean?

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN:** Sorry if the story's a little slow for you. But I have something planned to happen that'll add a couple chapters worth of drama here in a little while. Any guesses? Hint: It happened in the show.


	45. Picked It

"Do you like 'Jessica'?" I put the notebook down and flash my eyes in his direction. He's lying between my legs with his chin resting against my stomach. Steph's working her first overnight shift tonight and he was uncomfortable with me being home by myself all night, so even though he just got off work at 11:30 tonight, which was almost an hour ago, he went home to grab clothes and he's staying over with me so I'm not alone. I've been working at the hospital since the beginning of July and I have yet to work an overnight shift. All the interns have worked them except me. I'm starting to wonder if the attendings don't think I can handle an overnight shift. I just don't get why Heather's worked one, Leah's worked one, Shane's working one next week and my schedule for this week and next week both consist of strictly daylight shifts. Is there something wrong with me? "Jessie for short." I hold the blue inked ballpoint pen in my right hand and the notebook in my left.

"Jess…" He chokes out, his voice and speech slurred because he is really tired and there's no disguising that. He doesn't work tomorrow and neither do I so I think he's trying to go over his house and paint the baby's room tomorrow afternoon. "I don't like it. Doesn't sound like it'd be our daughter's name. Jessica… no, I don't like that one." My t-shirt is rising up around my lower belly a little bit so like I trained him to do, he pulls it down for me. He's allowed to lay on my stomach and rub it on one condition: He's not allowed to touch it and see it bare. It just feels really weird to have someone—not just him—touching on my stomach. It feels so weird. "Why don't we just name her 'baby'? I can see that. 'Come here, baby!' 'How was your day at school, baby?' 'Baby, sit down!'" He jokes. I crack a little smile at that. "Since we can't decide…"

"Well we're deciding tonight. I don't care what you say, we're choosing a baby name TONIGHT. No more of this back and forth stuff." I scribble out the name "Jessica" off the list I wrote down during my lunch hour today since he doesn't like it. Leah and Heather both helped me out with the names today. I think Steph might've let it slip to them that I'm pregnant, because I damn sure didn't tell either one of them but they somehow already knew. I was sitting by myself looking up names on my phone while I was eating a hamburger and when I looked up, they were both sitting next to me. They said I looked lonely. And Heather asked me what I was doing and I tried to hide what I was doing but Leah already saw and she asked if they could help. I'm not rude so I said yes. After all, the two of them gave some really decent suggestions. "Paisley."

"Paisley Karev…" He mumbles, almost inaudibly. "Sounds like some main course at a fancy restaurant. I can imagine someone being like 'Yeah, I'll have the Paisley Karev, well done please.' No Paisley." Instead of putting his chin back down against my belly, he switches out for his lips. He's always kissing my stomach and stuff and it's so uncomfortable but I get that he's excited. I never did get what pregnant women meant when they said that it feels weird to have people touching on their bellies, but I get it now. It really does feel weird. It feels like someone's touching my insides. "How many names you got on that list?"

"About a hundred." I exaggerate with a smile. I scribble out "Paisley" from the list as well and move on to the next one. "Ellison….instead of Allison." I try again, he just shakes his head. I knew that was a no when I was writing it this afternoon. It was just one name that carried over from the conversation me and Steph had last night. I just felt obligated to include one of the names Steph suggested out of courtesy. The only ones that weren't terrible were Ellison or Ellisyn and Mercy or Merci. "Mercy." While I'm on the subject of names from last night, I just decide to throw that one in there as well. He shakes his head again. "We're gonna be here all night…" I cross off both Ellison/Ellisyn and Mercy/Merci.

He rubs his eyes and yawns. He's so tired, I can tell. He has bags under his eyes and he's not talking as much as he usually does. When we're discussing the baby, he's usually so much more energetic and lively than this. I reach down and put my hand on his head and rub his hair. He blinks his eyes once and takes a minute to open them back up. "Well we need to speed this up. I'm tired and I work tomorrow morning." I furrow my eyebrows at that. I swear…

"No, you're off tomorrow." I put the notebook down on the pillow beside me and pick up my cell phone. I have his work schedule programmed in my phone because he's too irresponsible to do it himself and he refuses to write it down. He's always mixing up his off days and his shifts. I pull up his schedule and show it to him. "You're off tomorrow baby…look."

"I picked up an 11-7." He puts his hands flat against the bed and pulls himself up so he's no longer laying on my stomach; he's lying on my chest with his arms wrapped around my body. This is his favorite position. He's always laying on me like this. It's apparent that this is the most comfortable position for him. "Got a couple surgeries scheduled and some biopsies to do for Robbins…and a fourteen year old's staging." He closes his eyes and nestles his head in the crease of my boobs. They still ache pretty badly but he's tired and I'm not gonna move him. "Go 'head with the names…I'm still listening." He mumbles, half asleep.

"…Alex, no." I lock my phone back up and put it back on my nightstand. I wrap my arms around the top of his body, stroking his hair with my fingers. "You've been working your ass off. You haven't had an off day in so long. You're not working tomorrow." I'm being nice to him, caressing his hair and rubbing him and letting him be comfortable on my body…but I'm firm about that. He's not working tomorrow. "You need to rest up. You're overdoing it. I'm not letting you go to work tomorrow. You're staying here with me in bed and you're resting. I love that you're trying to be responsible and get more money for us but enough is enough. You're off tomorrow and that's that. You're not working."

"We need a crib." He mumbles. "And diapers…and two car seats…and lots of other pointless shit that won't be pointless in six and a half months." His voice is muffled because he's talking into my chest. "I'm working tomorrow…"

"No you're not. I'll call Dr. Robbins myself and tell her that you can't work tomorrow. She doesn't need you, obviously. You were off for a reason…she can do whatever she was planning to do without you. You're not working." I rub the back of his neck and make sure he's comfortable. "Look at you. You can hardly stay awake. You need to rest your body. We'll be fine and so will the baby. Our life isn't gonna crumble if you take a day off."

"I have other things I want to do with the money, Jo. I'm working tomorrow. I don't need you to worry about me." He lifts his head up to kiss me on my cheek. "So shut up now. I wanna go to sleep."

"What do I have to do to get you to listen to me?" I lean my head down and kiss his forehead. "Has it ever occurred to you that I'm actually smart? Ever think that I'm really not the village idiot? I know what I'm talking about. You're gonna keep overdoing it and you're just gonna pass out eventually. You're exhausted…you just need a day. Just one day." I stop stroking his hair and start rubbing his back. "Just give me one day…one day and I'll shut up."

"…Fine. I won't go." He grumbles and reaches across my body to grab his own phone. "I'll text Robbins and tell her I'm not doing so hot. I'll tell her to get an intern to run the biopsies…but I'm only doing this so you'll shut up." I watch the screen of his phone as he texts Arizona and tells her that he can't come in, just to make sure he actually does it. He taps his thumb on the "send" button and turns to me. "You happy?" Pleasantly pleased, I nod my head and pick up my notebook again. "Alright, let's pick this name so I can go to sleep."

"Okay." I pick up the pen again and find the spot I left off at. "Juliana." He shakes his head and I cross it off. "Spencer." He shakes his head. "Taylor?" He shakes his head again. Off the list goes both "Taylor" and "Spencer." Our pickings are getting pretty slim but I don't care. We're picking a name TONIGHT. I'm so tired of having a boy name but not a girl name. I'm tired of the back and forth with me liking one name and him hating it and him liking one name and me hating it. "Trinity…Serenity…Melody? Any of those?"

"…No." He shakes his head like he's disappointed. "Gimme that." He snatches the notebook off me and looks at it for himself. "Dana…Delany…Bree…Alaina…Whitney…" He shakes his head again. "Audrey? Really Jo? Audrey?"

"It was either that or Aubrey… I like Aubrey but I knew you'd hate it." I snatch my notebook back off him and cross out all the names he trashed. "We have to agree, Alex… You know how long it could take for us to choose a name? We both need to compromise. Is there anything you do like?"

"Yeah, Aubrey." He grabs the notebook off me once again and throws it onto the floor. "I like Aubrey. Why'd you think I'd hate it?"

"Because you don't like anything super girly, it seems." I pull my t-shirt down and yawn. I'm tired myself, actually. "So… you really like Aubrey?" He pokes his lip out and nods at me, giving me his official seal of approval. "Aubrey Karev… it doesn't sound bad either."

"No it doesn't. I like it." He rubs his hand through his hair like he always does when he's about to say something he's not sure of. "…But how is that spelled?"

"I was thinking A-u-b-r-e-y. Do you have anything else?"

"Double E? IE?"

"A-u-b-r-i-e? Or A-u-b-r-e-e?" I ponder on that for a little bit. "Or if you wanna get real crazy, we could go A-u-b-r-e-i-g-h."

"That's too much. I don't want to have to think about how to spell my kid's name." He's still so tired...and so am I. Yeah, let's make this super quick. "I want her to have a name that means something. Aubree's pretty but it has to mean something. Like Nathan's middle name means something…. why can't Aub's middle name mean something too? And it has to be simple to spell with meaning. You said I'm supposed to pick the girl's name…"

"Then pick it, Alex. I'm sorry, I wasn't letting you name my baby 'Farrah' or 'Savannah'. I'm letting you choose it right now… you said you liked Aubrey, that's the only name we can agree on. And the more I say it, the more I like it. So her name's Aubrey. Now how do you want to spell it?"

"…Not with an EY." He sounds so picky.

"Okay, A-u-b-r-e-e then. It's a unisex name and I feel like spelling it with the EY is kind of masculine anyway." _Aubree… Aubree Karev. I like it. Really, I do. I like it. It has a nice ring to it. _"She needs a middle name."

"Aubree Jo? Aubree Josie… Aubree… Josephine…"

"Stop trying to get me to name my child that hideous freaking name." He's really trying to get me to name her after myself. I think that's a bit conceited and not to mention, Josephine is GOD awful. Why do you think I insist on people calling me "Jo"? Because Josephine is horrible. I sound like I should be an old woman with oatmeal dripping down my chin. Matter of fact, I don't even know an old person named Josephine. I don't look like a "Josephine." I look like a "Jo" and that's that. "How about Aubree Alexis? You said you wanted the middle name to mean something, so there. Nathaniel Alexander and Aubrey Alexis. That makes it special. All done."

"See, but now I don't feel like I named her." He crosses his arms and just gives me the stupidest, goofiest smile. I can't resist that smile and he knows it. "I like Aubree Jo and you said I could name the girl so you don't have a say. Her name is Aubree Jo Karev and that's that."

"Can we just…" I grit my teeth together. I'm so fucking irritated with him. If there was ANYTHING I didn't want to name my baby, it was something that's like JOSEPHINE. That's so gross. I want my baby to have a pretty name. But I know that Alex isn't gonna give it up. In his defense, I DID say that he could name the baby if it's a girl. And because I said that, he can't dispute it. Just like he can't dispute Nathan's name. "Oh my god… I can't believe you're doing this to me…"

"Doing what? That's a pretty name. And it flows. Aubree Jo… Aubby Jo…Aubs Jo… It goes with every nickname. And when she doesn't something wrong, it's easy to yell. Like if she's sticking her finger in the electric socket, you can just yell 'AUBREE JO!' and it flows. I can't believe you don't like it. I love it." Finally, he's smiling. He doesn't look so tired anymore; he's just so happy. "I don't like Nathaniel but I'm not complaining."

"Oh shut up, you LOVE Nathan's name."

"Yeah, I like NATHAN…Not Nathaniel. But you like Nathaniel so I'm not complaining. We agreed that you'd name him if he's a boy and I'd name her if she was a girl. So you've got your Nathaniel and I've got my Aubree Jo. You're the one that said we have to compromise JO. So we're having an Aubree JO."

"…Whatever, it's not a girl anyway."

**X X X **

"…Alex?" I whisper his name real softly but it's so quiet in my bedroom that he should be able to hear. He was so tired that he's probably asleep already but I really hope he's not. I just… have some things that I want to talk to him about. It's 2:00 in the morning and I should be asleep myself. Actually, I thought for sure that I would be asleep by now. I really am tired but I can't fall asleep. I have so much on my mind. Please don't be asleep, Alex. "Alex…" I whisper again. I've been trying to fall asleep for a while now and I really just can't. I've been thinking about Nathan and Aubree. Ever since we chose Aubree's name, it's just been feeling so much more real to me. And I'm scared. "…Alexxxx…" I try just one last time before I leave him alone. He's asleep. He doesn't have time to deal with me and my insecurities.

I'm just scared. I'm not ready and this baby is coming. How am I gonna be a good mother? How am I gonna discipline my child when nobody's ever disciplined me? The only kind of discipline I know is being whipped for an hour straight with a belt for getting mud on the carpet. And I know that I had really bad welts and some broken skin underneath my butt for a week…I couldn't even sit down and pee without being in pain. And being slammed against a wall for beating up my foster brother. But that's not discipline. I'm not gonna beat my child. I'm not gonna spank him or her and if I ever do, I swear I'm not gonna do it for an hour. How else do you discipline? I really need Alex to be awake right now.

And what about teaching him or her to do the right thing? I don't know how to do the right thing… Nobody ever taught me how to do the right thing. What am I supposed to teach my baby? How to live in a car and…try not to get raped? I don't have a mommy…how the hell am I gonna be a mommy? I hate this. The second I think I've got this, I start thinking… and I really don't have this. Mommies usually have experience. They know how to quiet down their baby and they know what to tell their baby when they come home crying over things like getting bad grades or boy troubles. I don't have any positive experiences to share with Aubree. I need to have a boy. If I have a boy, at least he's got Alex. If I have Nathan, he's all set. Alex is gonna be great. But what if I have Aubree? I can't teach her anything. The only thing I can teach her is… how to scream and hit somebody with a beer bottle if they grab you the wrong way. _Alex, wake up… please, I'm freaking out._

A mom is one of the most important people in a child's life. What if I do this wrong? What if I make Nathan or Aubree hate me? I mean, it'll actually matter to me if my baby hates me. Unlike my own mother. My own mother probably doesn't give a rat's ass that me, her own baby, hates her fucking guts. I hate my mother. My father's a piece of shit too, but my mother is the BIGGEST piece of shit. I don't even care if she has a legit excuse for leaving me, I still hate her. I'll never leave my Aubree or my Nathan. But is that enough to make me a good mom? I'm scaring myself to death with this. I'm just gonna try and sleep…

Just as soon as I roll over on my side to go to sleep for the night, a light illuminates from my nightstand, making my pitch black room all lit up. I glance over at Alex to make sure he's still asleep and he is. He's sleeping like a baby too. He's on his side facing me, in a peaceful slumber. I sigh and brush his hair away from his face, reaching over with my other hand to grab my phone to see who's texting me. I push my home button and it's empty. I don't have any notifications. It must've been his phone then. I put my phone back and grab his. I'm not the type of girlfriend that goes through my boyfriend's phone. I'm just not like that. I'm just gonna take the notification away so it doesn't keep lighting up if it remains unchecked. I push his home button and read the notification. _New iMessage. _I read it to myself. It doesn't say who it's from. I slide my finger across the lock screen. He doesn't have a password to his phone so it unlocks quickly.

_I'm just curious… _I'm really not the kind that goes through a man's phone… _Okay, so what if I just do it…and don't tell him I did it. And I swear I won't get mad if I see anything. _I don't think I will see anything, honestly. Alex isn't the kind that has something to hide from me. He's not like that. But just in case I do… I tap on his messages. _Unread from Robbins. _I tap on the unread message…and ashamed as I am to do it, I just go through them…all of them..

**iMessage**

**Friday, October 2, 2014**

**2:35 a.m.**

**Zona: **Ok thats fine. We will probably b slow 2morrow anyway. Feel better Alex.

_She's texting him back from calling off…okay, that's fine._

**iMessage**

**Wednesday, September 30, 2014**

**6:29 p.m.**

**Babe: **I'm going home tonight because Steph's not staying over Leah's and I don't want her to be alone. Love you.

_Okay, that was from me….that was from yesterday._

**iMessage**

**Wednesday, September 30, 2014**

**1:32 p.m.**

**Mere: **Alex have u seen Cristina? She's not in O.R. 3 Text me back

_And of course, he didn't text her back. He was probably at the doctor's with me around this time yesterday. That's probably why he didn't text her back. _

I scroll through more of his messages, bored at this point. I knew Alex's messages were gonna be boring. He's not the type that has anything to hide from me, you know? I'm bored and I can't sleep, so that's really the only reason I decide to go through one more of his message threads. Just one more. I kind of wanted to refrain from going through this thread, but… I just want to know when the last time he talked to her was. That's all. Because even though I believe him when he says that he loves me, I just can't help but wonder how deep his feelings are. I swear I'm not proud of myself for going through his phone, but I just have to know…

I scroll down and tap on the thread that says "Iz." I hold my breath and just read…

**Text Message**

**Tuesday, July 27, 2014**

**4:52 p.m.**

**Iz: **what time are you going home tonight?

**Alex: **later. im going out with Jo for drinks then I'm going home

**Iz: **make sure you lock the door up. I'll be home tomorrow morning

**Alex: **I will

**Iz: **ok. love you so much.

**Alex: **love you too.

_July 27__th__ is the night we had sex for the first time. Isn't that crazy how much time can fly? How much time can change something?_

Beside me, the bed creaks a little bit. "…What are you doing babe?" His voice is loud in my ear, but it's groggy as he's still sleepy. I know he can't see the color of the phone through the darkness, so there's no way he'll be able to tell that it was his phone I was looking at. We both have iPhone 5s so they look the same in the dark….my phone is pink though. Leisurely, I push the lock button and put the phone back on the nightstand. I'm sweating bullets hoping that he didn't notice the conversation I was reading, because that's the only way he'll be able to know that I was going through his phone. But I play it cool. I don't want him to think I don't trust him. I'm really not the kind that goes through her boyfriend's phone, I swear I'm not. "Why aren't you sleep?"

"I couldn't sleep…" I roll over on my side so I'm facing him. "What are you doing up?" I counteract him. You know, Alex has changed a lot for me. I'm not the type that goes through her boyfriend's phone, but I just did. I was never the kind that wanted to have babies with anyone, yet here I am…two and half months pregnant with a baby that I love more than myself. I was never the kind to chase relentlessly after some man that treated me horribly, but Alex has said some terrible things to me and I'm still with him. I don't even recognize myself anymore. I'm not…Jo anymore. He changed me… and I don't know if it's for the better just yet…but I know it's not for the worse.

"I dunno." He scoots over and puts his hand against my back. "You should sleep though babe. Aubree needs you to rest…"

"Yeah… goodnight."

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"Your painting skills suck, babe." Shaking my head at her hopelessness, I put my hand to hers and trace the up and down motion with my hand on top of hers. "You have to paint one way… otherwise it'll look like a four year old painted it." I'll never give Jo the satisfaction by admitting this, I'm actually glad that I didn't go to work today. We're getting so much of Nathan/Aubree's room done. We're painting it white so that the colors won't be hard to deal with once we finally know the gender of the baby. The extra room that we're transforming was painted green because it was George's old room when he used to live here with us. So we're painting over it. We're on our second coat and Jo still hasn't gotten the hang of how she's supposed to paint. She's borderline genius but she can't paint. Well…my babe never claimed to be artistic.

"Shut up Alex." She's painting her own way which is really the wrong way. But the wall is going from green to white so I guess I don't care. "If you didn't want my help… you shouldn't have asked. I could always just sit on my FAT PREGNANT ASS and watch while you paint. But NO. Out of the goodness of my heart…" She's busy bitching at me but really? I'm busy looking at her. She's wearing a pair of my old basketball shorts that are so big on her that they pass her knees. She's wearing a red tank top as well that her boobs are popping out of the top of. And if I look closely enough, I can see her baby bump sticking out. I'm enchanted by how effortlessly gorgeous she is. She's not even trying. She's wearing bummy clothes but she still looks like a runway model.

"Ohhh blah, blah, blah…shut up." I bend down and grab my paint roller out of the tray of white it's laying inside of and start painting the wall right along with her. She's stretching up to get as close to the ceiling as she possibly can, but Jo's awful short so she can't reach much. Her hair is tied up in a high, side-swept ponytail and she has a white and black headband with Nike symbols all over it on her head as well. Her hair sways from side to side with the movements of her painting. "…You're so pretty." That just came out. I was thinking it, sure…but it just came out.

"…Thank you." She puts her paint roller down and walks back over to the windowsill where we put our drinks at. She picks up a bottle of Gatorade and takes a sip. "…You know, we're doing all this for Nathan's room and he's not even gonna notice. He's gonna be too busy sleeping and crying to even notice the room is white."

"Yeah but it's the principal." I raise up on my tiptoes and paint the parts that Jo couldn't reach. "Aubree won't exactly like a green room."

"Yeah but Nathan will." She winks at me, takes another sip of Gatorade and comes back over to resume painting. "…Do you know the rules at Seattle Grace-Mercy West?" She stops painting for a second and tilts her head. "Because when I was in college and I did some service work to complete my final year, the hospital I serviced at had rules. Only three people were allowed in the birthing room at one time. But when I did my clinicals at Harvard Med, they allowed four people. What are the rules for SGMW?"

"I think there's two or three allowed in there but I'm not real sure." I fix up the paint spots that she messed up on. "Why? We're only gonna need one, right? Unless… you have family that I don't know about. It'll be just me and you probably, huh?"

"Steph wants to be in the room when I have the baby." She kneels down and paints low towards the baseboards. "I told her I'd check and see how many were allowed in the room at once. She's all… weird about it. She wants to be there for her godchild."

"She's the godmother?"

"Yes… and I knew you'd have a problem with that because you and Steph have this thing going between you guys, but I'm telling you now. If Stephanie's in the room while I have the baby, you two are not gonna be arguing. I don't want Nathan born in a stressful environment. I'm probably gonna be doing enough screaming and yelling without you two in there to fuck it all up."

"…What if I don't want Edwards in the room? Is that negotiable?"

"…I mean… yeah." She shrugs her shoulders. "If you have a problem with Steph being in the room then she doesn't have to be. But why is that a problem for you?"

"I dunno… I always just pictured it being you and me and the doctor and the other medically necessary people. I just thought it was gonna be special for the two of us… not me, you and Edwards…"

"It could still be special with Stephanie in the room."

"You're missing my point, babe." I don't really want to argue with her. "I'm saying… when I thought about the birth of my baby, I was just picturing it being you…me…and Aubree for a second. It's a special thing for me and you… and I feel like it'll lose some of the meaning if I have to share that memory with your friend…"

"…Alright." She nods. "Steph doesn't have to be in the room. She can be in the waiting room and she can be the first person allowed back. Like when I'm all cleaned up for visitors and stuff. Her and…Meredith and Cristina can be the first people that come see me and Nathan and you when everything's done."

"But if you really want Edwards to be in the room babe…"

"No, it's fine. I totally get what you're saying." She bites her lip in typical Jo fashion. "…Plus, I don't really know what my pain tolerance is. I don't know how I'm gonna act and I really don't need Steph there while I'm acting a fool and showing my ass. It's bad enough I'm gonna have you there…staring at me…and my…parts that you used to…have sexual…relations with. This is gonna be weird enough for me without my best friend being there."

"Oh chill… I've seen lots of women give birth and lots of babies that look like martians when they first come out." I reassure her. "All babies look like little aliens that have been puked on when they first come out. And I'm gonna be there for you. Watching you poop on the table."

"I'm not gonna poop on the table…" Her cheeks flush bright red.

"Yeah you are. Like…all women do. It just happens. You're pushing and you poop on the table. It's gross, but it's normal."

"…If I poop, please don't tell me. That's embarrassing."

"Okay…if you poop, I won't tell you." I kiss her cheek. "Stop worrying." I rub her back. "Childbirth is natural, babe… whatever happens, happens. You're gonna poop, you're gonna scream… you're gonna break your reamus."

"…My what?" Her eyes get so big. I hold back laughter and keep my face serious using the same trick she taught me in the tunnels back when we were just getting to know each other. "I'm gonna break my what?"

"Your reamus." I nod, making it real believable. "There's this bone in your tailbone called your reamus. During childbirth, it breaks off and you push it out along with the baby. It just breaks off… all women break their reamus."

Her eyes are huge and I swear I see tears welling up. There's no way she's buying this. She went to MED school. She has a BIOLOGY degree. How is she buying this? "But…I don't wanna break my reamus." She shakes her head, her face washed with terror.

"…There's no such thing as a reamus babe." I bust out in laughter at her face. She pokes her lip out at me and sniffs. "You went to medical school babe….you should know all 206 bones in the human body. There's no such thing as a reamus."

"You made it sound so believable…Alex, I hate you."

"I love you." I kiss her forehead. She's so gullible for that. Interrupting our moment, the doorbell rings. "You keep…fucking up my paint job, I'm gonna go get the pizza." She sticks her tongue out at me and resumes painting the wall. I leave out the room and jog down the steps to get the pizza I ordered a little while ago. It got here pretty quickly.

I swing open the front door…and I'm turned stone cold and filled with irritation, frustration and just…shock when I see the person standing in front of me.

**A/N:** So a lot of you guys' guesses for what's gonna happen include Alex's dad. Which isn't a bad suggestion and I actually might toss that in here when I figure out how exactly to do it. I hadn't planned on the drama thing being Alex's dad though.

Just one more hint about what might happen: This story is a little bit AU, which means that the things that happen in it don't necessarily have to be in order with the show. Meaning that even though Jo wasn't around, it doesn't mean that I can't MAKE her around for a certain situation. So…any other guesses?

Oh, and how do you feel about Aubree Jo Karev? I kind of like it…do you guys?


	46. Go Away

When I get over the initial shock of being faced with the person standing on my front porch, a different flood of other emotions washes over me. It's a mixture of anger, somewhat of confusion as well. It's like the blood coursing through my veins was replaced with anger. My heart's not pumping blood…just anger. "What are you doing here?" I hardly even recognize my own voice as I step out onto the porch, looking behind myself to make sure Jo isn't anywhere close behind me. I shut the front door to let it be known that I'm not up for visitors right now and even if I was, she wouldn't be welcomed here; not anymore at least. "What do you want? What did you even come here for?" I really need her to leave. If I take too long out here, Jo will come looking for me and I really don't need her to step out onto this porch to the sight of her being here once again.

Her face is full of color—not pale like it was the last time I've seen her. And I can tell by the look on her face that she's here and she's on a mission. She has her hands buried deep in the pockets of the black coat I bought for her months ago, her yellow-blonde hair sleek and straight down, resting comfortably on her shoulders. She's the complete opposite of what I've been used to for the last few months, honestly. I've been used to this tiny, short, petite thing with bushels of long, silky dark brown hair and light brown eyes. Yet standing here in front of me is the tall, model-esque body with the short blonde hair and the dark brown eyes. She's been gone for quite some time, but I haven't lost the ability to read her faces and know exactly what she's thinking. She hasn't been away from me for that long. "That's not exactly the hello I was banking on, but I'll take it." The wind blows and her hair catches on her forehead. She moves it out of her way and her lips turn up into a smile. I remember when I used to love her smile. "Can I come in?"

I swear I just felt my heart skip a beat. I let out a breath I wasn't aware I was holding and shake my head. "…No." My mind just keeps flashing back to Jo, whose upstairs painting the room of the baby we're expecting in a few short months. She's probably wondering where I'm at by now and she'll probably come looking for me sooner rather than later. She's happy. For the first time since we've been together, she genuinely seemed happy today, painting the baby's room with me. If she comes downstairs and sees this, this will break her. I just got her to believe me when I said that Izzie was a chapter in my life I wasn't reopening. "What are you doing here, Iz? You need to leave…"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear so it's out of the way and looks down at what seems like the ground. I trace her eyes and realize she's looking at me, not the ground. I shift my weight off my back leg and distribute it evenly between both of them. "You're not wearing your ring anymore." I'm not sure if that was a statement or a question; the tone of her voice leaves that up for discussion. Why would I wear my ring? She gave hers back to me and she LEFT. That to me says that we're over. Why should I still have my ring on my finger? "I'm here to talk to you, Alex." The tone of her voice now is just filled with sorrow mixed with a hint of regret. "I think me and you at least owe that to each other… to talk."

"I don't owe you anything, Iz." I shake my head at her once again and glance back at the door to make sure that Jo still isn't there. I never thought about this moment. I mean, sure I thought about the what ifs of it. I thought about what I would do if someday Iz showed up apologetic and whatnot, but I never really thought she'd come and I never actually set a plan in motion for what I'd do if she actually did come back. I just don't know what to do. I know I don't want to invite her inside because I'm NOT in the business of disrespecting Jo. I'd be a disrespectful son of a bitch if I brought my ex inside the house while my current is upstairs painting our BABY's room. On the other hand… me and Iz did leave off on a pretty messed up note. I don't want her back but I do feel like the both of us owe it to each other to clear things up. Just not right now. Not while Jo's upstairs. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't know what you want to get out of talking to me but Iz…" Involuntarily, my head is shaking. "Not right now. Don't do this right now."

"Alex, we actually have things to discuss though." She takes a step closer to me so that she's officially completely on the porch. It started to rain all of a sudden and she was getting wet…I'd like to believe that's the only reason she stepped closer. "If you don't wanna talk, that's fine. I'll do the talking." I can tell by the tone of her voice and the fluidity of her words that she's had some time to rehearse this. "Can I start with an 'I'm sorry'?" She puts her hands back into her coat pockets and looks around like she's nervous. "I'm sorry for everything. Sorry for leaving you all those times we argued...sorry for just being a bad fiancée…and being so horrible to you when you were so…amazing to me." Her voice is shaky, trembling and her eyes are filling up with honest tears. She's not like Jo in the sense that I can't tell when her tears are real. Iz doesn't possess the talent to cry on spot like Jo, so when she cries, it's real. And I'm a sucker for tears. I am. I don't like when people—especially women—cry in front of me. I always feel the need to apologize when the waterworks flow and I'm not good with apologies. "And I've been sitting alone back in the trailer park with my mother ever since I left you and I've been thinking…" I stuff my own hands into my pockets while I just listen to her. The least I can do is listen… "Alex, I don't want anyone if they're not you. It took me too long to realize and now that I finally did realize… I need you back. I need you. My life is empty without you. It's a constant wave of wanting you, loving you…needing to be with you. I missed you…and I don't think you can look me in my eye and tell me that you don't miss me too."

"You don't know me anymore." As painful as it was for me to admit that, it's the truth. And by admitting that, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach. They weren't kidding when they said that the truth hurts. It's just upsetting for me to sit here and realize what we've become. I'm in love with the woman that's in my house, painting. But that doesn't make it any less painful to know that after four long years of me and Iz being together, off and on, we're not what I always thought we'd be. I have Jo now and Jo's amazing—beyond amazing, actually. But I still devoted four years of my life to the woman standing in front of me, just for it to be all gone in this instant. "You don't know me anymore, Iz. You don't know how I'm feeling, or what I think anymore. You don't know who I am anymore Izzie."

"How much could you have possibly changed over the course of two months? You say it like I've been gone for a year. Alex, it's been _two _months since I've left. …Not even two whole months yet, more like a month and three weeks. How much could you have possibly changed?" She takes another step towards me and for some odd reason; I can't find it in myself to take a step away from her. My legs are just like gelatin and I can't even find the nerve to pick them up. It's not that I actually like her being so close to me, it's just that I don't know how to back away without seeming arrogant or rude. "I still know you, Alex." She looks like she wants to hug me but something in her own body is preventing her from doing so. "We can make this work, you know..." She whispers, more so to herself than to me. She clears her throat and speaks up. "I just came from the hospital, you know…" She scratches her head and looks down at the ground. "I actually went looking for you 'cause I thought you might've been working but I actually talked to chief Hunt while I was there… he said I can have my job back if I wanted it…and I went up and talked to my supervisor in dermatology and she said they haven't hired anyone in my place yet, so my job's still open. I can get my job back and we can just make this work, Alex. No more running from me. No more of anything. Just me and you, making it work. I'm…just not ready to throw away our four years…"

I'm not heartless, you know? I'm not heartless and I was in a relationship with Izzie for four whole years. So granted, I still do care about her feelings. And she seems like she came here on a desperate whim, just hoping that it wasn't too late for her to get me back. She seems desperate, painfully sorry. I don't want to hurt her by just blurting out that I'm with Jo now and I'm having a child with Jo. So I have to find a way to tell her that all hope of us being together is gone. I've moved on to bigger (or in Jo's case, smaller) and better things and I'm not gonna regress by taking back a woman that for lack of better word, broke my damn heart. Iz broke me there for a second. Jo put me back together. "I get it. I get all of that and I get that you're trying to—" I'm interrupted by the sound of my front door opening behind me.

"Alex, we ran out of…" She sounded cheerful and so happy at first, but her voice trails completely off, dabbling in the depths of disappointment and sadness. She leans against the door for support and her eyes go straight to Izzie. I can't read the look Jo has on her face at the moment. I think it's a look of being upset, but the more I look at the way her nostrils are flaring, she very well might be pissed off. Her mouth closes and her lips press together and she takes a step further into the house. I watch as the skin on her cheeks turn from usual cream-colored to a very vibrant bright red. Maybe the look she had on her face was embarrassment. She crosses her arms over her slightly protruding abdomen as if she's protecting it or trying to hide it. This definitely isn't how I wanted Iz to find out about me and Jo…but hey.

"You and your friend doing some home improvement?" Since the door is open, Iz barrels her head around and leans to the side to see inside the house past Jo. I'm completely tuned into Jo's face. One of her eyebrows raises up and her eyes get wider. Jo doesn't know what Iz is talking about, but I know that she's referring to the streak of white paint Jo has on the pair of basketball shorts she's wearing. I can also tell that Iz isn't even thinking that I might possibly be in a relationship with Jo. She referred to Jo as my _friend_, first of all. And second of all, she still has a cheerful, happy look on her face. If she knew that I'm in a relationship with Jo, she wouldn't look so happy. "It's good to see that she's still around…" Completely dismissing the fact that Jo's standing there, Iz looks at me…like Jo's not even a factor.

"…I'm… actually gonna just…" Jo can't even form a sentence. She's literally dumbfounded, puzzled even. Even though Izzie isn't looking at her, Jo's eyes haven't left Izzie. "I…" Jo's jaw starts trembling and she takes another step backwards, as if she's trying to go in the house and hide. I can't just sit here and watch her self-destruct like this. I turn around and grab ahold of Jo's wrist. She looks at me like a deer caught in headlights but I don't care. She's my life now…and Izzie's gonna have to find out sometime so why not now? I drag her out of the house so she's standing on the porch right next to me.

"Look Iz…" I put my arm around Jo and when I do that, that's when Iz gets the picture. Her eyebrows wrinkle and I can just tell that she's pissed. There's no confusing the look Iz has on her face. She's PISSED. "I'm with Jo now… and you should know that. I uh…should've told you that at the beginning. But I'm telling you now." Jo's still very uncomfortable. I can tell by the way she's hardly letting me put my arm around her. She's stiff. "I'm with Jo and that's the way it is. I love her." As soon as I say that I love Jo, Izzie busts out in laughter that's as if I said something hysterical. And since Jo is such a little hot head, she shrugs my arm away from being on her body and I know that she has the potential to escalate, so I grab her arm—tight. I'm holding Jo so tight that I'm going to leave a mark on her arm but I'll apologize later.

"I haven't even been gone two months, Alex." She shakes her head and turns to address Jo. "I actually feel bad for you, you know." Jo tilts her head when she says that. "But then again…you don't know him the way I know him." Jo doesn't even say anything back. I literally don't know what's gotten into her. This isn't typical Jo, you know? Jo doesn't usually let anyone talk bad to her. But she hasn't even said anything back to Izzie…so Izzie just keeps talking. "If you did know Alex as well as I know Alex, you'd know that he doesn't move on that quickly. Sweetie, he was engaged to me less than two months ago…and now he's with you? You're just a pawn to get over me. And that sucks…because you're a really sweet girl."

Why would she plant that seed in Jo's head? Jo already thought she was nothing but my rebound and now Izzie putting it in her head is probably just sealing the deal for her. "How many times do I have to tell you that you don't know me anymore, Izzie? You don't know me as well as you think you do." I slide my hand down to Jo's waist and rub her lower back so she knows that I'm here. "And you're wrong. You're wrong about that. I do love her. If I haven't been sure of anything, I'm sure of that. So like I said before… you should go…"

"I came here for a purpose, Alex. I don't care about her. I don't care about your relationship with her. I came back here because I want _you. _And if you give me…a week tops, I can make you realize that you want me too. All I need is a week. Four years with me doesn't compare to the… what? Couple weeks? The couple weeks you had with her. You really think I'm just gonna let you go that easily? I love you… more than she does. I've loved you longer. And if you feel anything like the way I feel without you, then you can't ignore it. I mean…you of all people should know that I'll fight for what I love. I don't have a problem fighting for you…"

"Fuck this." Jo mumbles and breaks out of my hold again just to go back in the house. I have to go after her. But not before I make sure Izzie's gone. Jo slams the door shut hard behind her and with that, she's gone. And I don't know, I still somehow care about Iz's feelings. Not more than I care about Jo's, but I do care.

"…Iz." I put my hand on her shoulder. I don't think I've ever been this confused a day in my life, and that's saying a lot. I'm far from being super smart and I've been confused a lot but never this confused. Confused because…how can I possibly care about Jo as much as I do? I'm not even thinking about how much I love the baby either. I'm just thinking about how much I love Jo. So how can I love her this much but somewhere I still care about how I make Izzie feel? Could there possibly be some underlying feelings there? I don't know and I don't want to know. I just want her to leave. Because for the first time in my life, I feel like I can be happy and that happiness includes Jo and Aubree/Nathan. "..Thank you." I start out. Because honestly, not all the feelings I have for Iz are bad. There are some positive feelings there. "For coming back to me. For coming back and telling me that you love me and that you didn't want to leave me. Because… I've really needed to hear that. I really needed you to tell me that it wasn't anything I did wrong. I needed to hear you say that I did alright." I nod. "But you're too late…" As soon as I say that, a quiet tear rolls down her cheek. "I love Jo. And really? You had no right to say that to her because you're wrong. You don't know me. I've done a lot of growing up since you've been gone. And I know what it looks like. I know it looks like Jo's a rebound, but she's not. She's not… so please Iz… don't do this…don't try and mess this up for me…"

"…What if you think I'm gonna mess this is up because you do still have something there for me?" She wipes away her tear and just looks at me. "That's the only way I'd be able to mess it up. Alex, are you really gonna tell me that the last four years were a waste? I've loved you longer than her…I've loved you so much longer. And I still do love you. I never claimed that I didn't. I made a mistake by walking and I came back to fix it. You're never supposed to walk away from someone you love and I made a mistake by doing that. I… I saw that little girl…" She's referring to Jo, I believe. "I saw her as a threat…and I saw that you were starting to fall for her. I saw it. And I got scared. And instead of being a woman and fighting for the man I love, I walked because I couldn't take the threat. It was the biggest mistake of my life and I've regretted it every single day since I've been gone. And I finally got up the courage to come back and fight for you. And I'm not gonna let her win, Alex."

"I don't want you to fight for me, Iz. I don't want you to." I look down at the ground because, well, I feel bad. I feel bad for letting her down like this. But…I have to do it. For Jo and for Aubree. "I don't want you to sit here fighting a battle that you're not gonna win. I'm not gonna lie to you face. I love you. I'll probably…always love you. But it's not in the way you love me anymore. I love you to the extent that I want you to go. I want you to go and figure it all out and be happy with someone else…because both of us deserve that. We weren't right for each other Iz, but I found someone that is right for me. And if I can find someone for me, you can find somebody for you. I want you to be happy. We deserve to be happy…"

"Do you really mean that?" She folds her arms and looks at me with the most hurtful look on her face. She's hurt…deeply. "Because how do we go from four years' worth of loving each other. A years' worth of planning our dream wedding. Two years' worth of me being sick. And three years' worth of discussing the fact that we wanted to have babies…to you just being with…her? Alex, she's not even your type. And if you are using her to get over me, then shame on you. I don't particularly like her, but she seems like a nice girl and you better not hurt her. Because I've been on the receiving end of your little games and they don't feel good. Don't hurt her. I hate her guts but nobody deserves to go through the pain of loving you then losing you."

"I'm not." I look her dead in her eyes so she knows that I'm not lying. "I love Jo. And this isn't how I wanted you to find out, but everything's out of the bag right now so here it goes." I bite my bottom lip to try and take the sting off what I'm about to tell her. "I love Jo. And I want to be with her for the rest of my life but she doesn't know it yet. She doesn't know how much I love her and I don't want her to know because I don't want to scare her. So we're taking this part of it slow." I sigh. "And yes, we were doing some home improvement. We were…" I run my hand through my hair. "We were upstairs painting our baby's room. She's gonna have my baby in a couple months. And I'm happy about that. We're happy..."

"You got her pregnant?" She raises her eyebrows. "Wow…the girl really is dumb." She shakes her head. "She let you talk her into having your baby _already_? I thought she was supposed to be…super smart or something."

"You don't have to call her names." I sigh. "And it's not like we were trying. We had sex one time and it happened." I shrug my shoulders. "I love her, Iz. And I'm sorry you had to find out that I…cheated on you and fell in love with another woman this way, but it happens. I'm sorry that all this had to happen the way it did, but in all honesty…you left me. You broke my heart, Iz. Broke it…shattered it. You broke my heart…and Jo was there to pick it up when you weren't. And I fell for her. And I love her and if you stay and fight this battle, you'll lose. I'm choosing her."

"We'll see about that, Alex."

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"Jo…" I very well hear his voice calling me from downstairs somewhere but he doesn't need to know that I hear him. I'm just not ready to talk to him yet. "Babe, where are you at?" I'm upstairs in his bathroom sitting against the wall. I unravel the wad of toilet paper I gathered up and squeeze my nose with it. Soon after I went running into the house like a big baby, I started crying pretty hard. I'm not crying because I'm sad though, I'm crying because I'm pregnant and I couldn't fight her the way I wanted to. When she started laughing at Alex saying that he loves me, I swear I could've ripped her head off. And if Alex wasn't there to grab my arm like that, I might have. "Jo….babe…" I hear the creaking of the floorboards as he nears my location. This is actually a new thing for me. I'm crying because I'm angry and I've never done that before. I don't cry when I get mad…I swing when I get mad. He knocks twice on the bathroom door. "I know you're in there." I sniff and pull my knees into my chest so I can rest my chin atop of them…while I'm still skinny enough to do that, you know. "Open the door and lemme in…"

I just can't believe I walked out and saw that. Of all people for me to open up the door to, it had to be her. And did she really mean that? I'm already so insecure about whether he really wants to be with me or not…why did she have to say that? And why is there a little tiny part of me that believes it? After all, she has known him far longer than I have. And if she says that Alex doesn't move on that quickly, is she being true? What if he's only with me for the baby? You know, something inside me told me that she'd be back. I knew it. Because nothing in my life could ever go right. Everything has to be so freaking complicated. I sniff again and bawl the used toilet paper up again. I dab my eyes with the only dry spots on the paper and stand up. I go over to the door and open it up. He's standing on the other side of it, worry written all over his face.

He looks at me from head to toe. "…You okay?" I nod my head and push past him. "You know everything she said isn't true, right?" He follows after me because I'm walking back to Nathan's room. I nod my head again. "You know I love you?" I pick up my paint roller once again and scrape up the last little bit of paint to finish the spot behind his door. I went outside to tell him that we ran out of paint but I was interrupted oh so rudely by her. "And you're not just a pawn to get over her. And I don't care how much she plans on fighting… she'll lose. I want you…okay?"

I drop the paint roller back down and turn around quick to look at him. He just needs to know my take on all of this. Because he's changing me. I'm not this weak female that he's making me. I love Alex with all my heart but I… "…I'm not fighting over you." I shake my head at him, keeping my composure. "I refuse to fight with her over you. If I…. if I have to fight over you, then I don't want you. I want you, Alex. I want you to be mine and only mine. And I'm not fighting over you. If I have to fight over you then she can have you. I don't want there to be any dispute about this. I'm not a fucking show pony that'll do the best trick to win the prize. I'm not…" I swallow a lump in my throat. Stupid pregnancy hormones are gonna make me cry. "I'm not an ex-model, Alex. I'm not an ex-model, I don't have the looks of a model, I didn't come from a family that was nice, I didn't… ever dream of wanting children. But I… I do love you. And if that's not enough then I can't keep doing this with you. I'm not fighting with her over you. If it comes down to a fight, I surrender. She can have you…"

"It's not gonna come down to a fight." He wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me so close to him that there is no empty space between us. "I already made up my mind. I'm the ringleader here. I'm the referee. I pick the winner. And I picked you already. So let's stop with all this banter because there isn't a fight. She can fight all day long but I know where my heart lies. Iz was a chapter in my life that I'm ready to close. You're next for me, Jo. And I want you to be my forever." Alex doesn't usually hug me, but without any kind of hesitation, he wraps his arms around my entire body and squeezes me. He has one arm around my waist and the other around my back, holding me so tight that I can't breathe. "There's no fight. You got me. I don't care if you don't want me…you got me. And you're stuck now." He squeezes me even tighter. "…Here." He mumbles and lets me go.

"Here what?" I wrinkle my brow and wait for him to tell me what he's talking about. I really wish we were still hugging. I felt so safe in his arms. He pulls completely away from me and leaves out of the room. "Alex…" I follow him out of the room but he moved so fast that I don't know where he went. "Alex!"

"I was gonna wait!" I hear him scream from a different room. What's he talking about? His bedroom door opens up and he walks out of it. "I was gonna wait to do this…because…" He walks back into the baby's room with me and stands right in front of me. He's acting so crazy right now. "I told you I loved you, scared the shit out of you. I asked you to move in with me, I scared the shit out of you. And this is already too fast for you and you don't let me forget that. So I was gonna wait to do this because I…have a feeling that the idea of commitment scares you. And that's okay." He has a little black box in his hand. _Oh my god. Please don't do this. This is all way too much. If he…gets down on one knee…I swear to god I'm done. Please don't do this to me. He can't do this. I'm not ready…the answer is no. I don't want to get married._

"Oh, Alex…" I shake my head at him, desperately pleading with him to save himself the embarrassment because this is the biggest NO I've ever been faced with in my life. "Please don't—"

"It's not what you think it is." He opens up the box and I close my eyes before I can even see it. If I don't look at it, it's not happening. "I was gonna give this to you the day you came home to me. Even after I said all those fucked up things to you, you still got off work and came to be with me. And when you went to sleep that night, I went out and I bought this for you. But then you got sick when I told you I loved you so I decided to wait on it. Then you were sick for a while. And then you told me you were pregnant and I didn't want you to think I was doing this because you're pregnant because I'm not. I was gonna do it regardless." He grabs my hand. "I think now's the right time… just so you know I'm serious. Open your eyes, Jo…it's not what you think…"

I cautiously open up my eyes. I look down as he manhandles my right hand and stuffs something on my ring finger. I promised myself that I'd show no emotion, but I accidentally let out a loud gasp…because it's so beautiful. It has a shiny silver band and it's shaped like a silver infinity symbol. On the left side of the infinity symbol, there's a little gold heart rested in it. It's so… "…Oh my god." I whisper to myself. And it fits. It's a perfect fit.

"…It's not an engagement. It's not. I'm not ready to be engaged again and I know you're not ready for marriage…so don't let this scare you." He touches it on my finger, making sure it fits. It's perfect. "This isn't an engagement and this isn't a commitment. This is just a promise. That's all it is. …It's the step before an engagement. The step nobody ever talks about but it's there. Believe me, it's there. It's not anything like that. It's an… it's an 'I promise', Jo. Promise that someday, it'll become an 'I will'. And hopefully…someday after that, it can become an 'I do'. It's just a promise…no strings attached, just a promise…" He keeps reiterating that to me. He really does understand. He gets that commitments freak me out. And he was gonna give this to me regardless of the baby? "…Don't let it scare you…"

I just keep staring at my finger's new decoration. "…How'd you know my ring size?"

"…I measured it while you were asleep…" He admits. "Is that creepy?"

"…No." I put my arms around his waist. "Thank you, baby. I love it." I lift my head up to him and kiss his lips long, hard, passionately. I curl my fingers through his hair. I'm really starting to hate him. I swear I hate Alex. He's making me fall so head over heels in love with him and that wasn't the plan. It wasn't ever supposed to be like this. But I love this man. We were just supposed to be friends. And then after the friends, it wasn't supposed to escalate to anything more than us being sex buddies. I was never supposed to love him. He was never supposed to make me love him. This wasn't the plan. "I love it." I keep my arm around his neck and take my ring hand away from his head to admire it some more.

"So it's not freaking you out?" He keeps his arms around my waist. "And it fits right?"

"No it's not freaking me out and yes, it fits just perfectly." I kiss his lips again. "…You know I have to make this up to you, right?" He smirks. "What? I do… I can't just let you get me a ring without returning the favor." I put my hands on his waist. "…I need a shower…do you?"

"….I can use one." He puts his hands on my butt. "But the shower is so far away… we're right here in an empty room." He kisses my neck and puts his hands against my shoulders, forcing me down on the floor. "And plus, I'm still pretty clean… why don't you give me a reason to need a shower?" He's kissing all over my neck and he's doing it because he knows damn well that kissing my neck is just… whoa. I lay down on the floor and allow him to put his weight on me. "Got this big room that we haven't even christened yet…"

"There's paint everywhere!" I scream because I just put my elbow against the paint roller and now I have paint on me. "Alex…come on, let's go to another room…" He's still kissing my neck and trying to take my clothes off. "…There's paint everywhere in here…" My eyes inadvertently roll to the back of my head because he's already doing stuff below my waist. He's trying to shut me up by getting me started because he knows that when I start, I can't stop and he really doesn't want to move rooms. He kisses from my neck to my chest. Looks like I'm having sex in a paint infested room…

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><p><span><strong>AN:** So, Izzie coming back still isn't the main drama thing I have planned. Izzie coming back is just setting it up to happen in a couple chapters. Izzie will be back for a little while and I had to bring her back in order to set up what I have planned to happen to Alex (and Jo too, really).

Okay, so next chapter is the big moment. Next chapter, we'll find out if it's a Nathan or an Aubree. So what do you guys think it's going to be? What do you hope it is? Pink or Blue?

& There will be smut next chapter. Dirty, dirty, dirty smut. It's pretty dirty, just warning. I already started writing it and it's really dirty. The smut will start out the next chapter so be prepared.

& I meant to ask you guys last chapter but I'll ask you now: Do you agree with Alex about it just being him and Jo in the delivery room?


	47. Sorry About That

**A/N:** **M **rated content in this chapter. HEAVY **M **rated content. Please use discretion, or whatever.

& Leave me reviews, telling me if you're happy with what happens in this chapter :)

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><p>I lift my arm up and twist it as far around as I possibly can so I can see my elbow. There's paint all over it, dripping down to the back of my forearm. There's paint everywhere in this room. I'm all for us having sex but I think it's nearly impossible for us to do it right here. No matter where or how we move, we're going to end up covered in white paint. Plus, I swear I'll freak out if I get paint in my hair. I've had paint in my hair before and it's impossible to get out without cutting it. "Baby…seriously. Let's just go to your room…" I'm fighting to remain calm but I'm really struggling. His face is buried in my neck while his hand is below my waist, inside my basketball shorts and inside my underwear as well. I reach up with my hand on the arm that doesn't have paint all over it and move my hair so that it's completely behind me, unable to get paint in any of it. "Oh! …God…" My breath catches in my throat while I hold back a moan. His thumb is tracing circles around the most sensitive part between my legs. Since his head is in the crook of my neck, I rest my chin atop of it and bite on my bottom lip.<p>

He puts his free hand against one of my legs and pushes it aggressively to the side, like it's nothing but something that's inconveniencing him. When he gets my legs open, he stops playing between my legs and takes my pants off. I elevate my hips to make it easier for him and he grabs ahold of my underwear as well. He tosses my underwear and the basketball shorts to the side and kisses me, hungrily against my lips. After the kiss, he leans up and gets rid of his t-shirt as well. I think he's been working out some more. I mean, my babe is already hot as hell and he has the sexiest muscles but he looks bigger. Staring at his shirtless top half, my mouth literally begins to water. I want him… I sit up right along with him and grab him by his shoulders so he's against me. With him still in my hold, I lay back down flat against the floor and pull him on top of me. "Thought you wanted to go somewhere else…" He murmurs in my ear, his hands working below his waist to take off his sweatpants. His voice is thick and passionate, sending chills up my spine and waterworks down below. I ignore his snide comment and help him take his pants off. I need him so bad. He knows that once I start I can't stop so he got me started and now I just don't give a crap if I get paint all over myself. I need him.

He gives my lips one last kiss before he sits up again, completely naked this time. My tank top is still on and perfectly intact and I know that if I don't take it off, he's not even gonna worry about it until I get on top. My shirt can stay on for now, I guess. While he's sitting up hovering over my body, he wraps his muscular arms around my legs and pulls me closer to him. I can tell by the way he's moving along that this isn't going to be lovemaking like it has been the last two times we had sex. We haven't had sex in weeks and he's good and ready. I don't mind that he's not gonna be slow and passionate with me though. Don't get me wrong, I really love the slow, passionate lovemaking but sometimes, I'm really in the mood for the rough stuff…like I am right now. He wraps his hand around his erection and holds me still with his other hand. His free hand is gripped tightly around my hip while his other one is guiding himself. Biting my lip, I look down and watch as he gently slides the tip of himself inside me. It takes my body a little while to adjust for several reasons. One, because it's been a while since we've done anything; two because Alex is very far from small, so when he does go in, my body _does _have to stretch a little bit, and thirdly, because I forgot just how huge he actually is.

Once he has the tip in, he moves his hand away from holding himself and puts it on the other side of my hip. His fingers are on the lower part of my back and his thumbs are securely on the indentations of my hips. While he's holding me still, that's when he gently glides the rest inside of me. That's one thing I love about him. No matter how rough he's about to go with me, his first entrance is always so slow and steady…like he doesn't want to hurt me. I reach up and put my hands against his arms, since I can't reach his back. Since his hands are around my hips, he lifts my hips up and braces himself against them. I wrap my hands around his arms just as he starts thrusting in and out. With his hands still wrapped around my waist, he pulls me closer every time he pushes it back inside and when he does that, I swear he's just so deep. "Oh my god…" I mouth to myself, arching my back. "Oh my god...oh my god…" I'm still whispering but if he keeps going this hard, I'm gonna scream…

He takes his hands away from my hips and puts them on my legs. He holds my legs open as wide as they can possibly go and looks down at every single thrust. "You can…" He starts mumbling to me but he's interrupted by his own grunt. His grunts are so sexy. "Be loud, you know…" He takes one hand off my leg and put sit down between my legs to tease me while he slows down the thrusts just a little bit. I shake my head and accidentally let out a really soft moan. I gasp to catch my breath and moan again. "Not as loud as I want you to be…" He lets both my legs go and lays down flat against me. He moves his hips side to side to part my legs open wider and tucks his face in the crook of my neck. And he starts going so hard that I can't grab ahold of his back good enough because he's moving so fast.

"Uhhh…uhh…" My hands slip long his sweaty back as I keep trying to grip it. Since I can't get a good hold on it, I just wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze. I tangle my fingers up in his hair and slide them down to his waist. I keep my hands flat against his hips because they're sweaty as well so I won't get a good grip on them but they're the only parts of his body that will allow me to rest somewhere. He pushes himself all the way inside me and stops thrusting in and out and begins rocking back and forth…he knows I love when he does that. He knows I go crazy when he stops thrusting and slows it down so it's a hump. "Oh my god baby…" I drag my hands back up to his back and dig my nails in. "Oh…like that…like that…" I put my face in his shoulder blade because I have to scream. I don't like being all loud with him though. He loves it when I scream and stuff but I really don't like to. I feel annoying when I scream but sometimes he just makes me. "Ooohhh…." I bite on his shoulder blade to choke back my need to scream.

With his face still burrowed in my neck, I hear him grunting. His lips are right below my jawline, kissing me here and there between grunts. Finally, he picks his face up from my neck, which generally means that he's going to do something different. He kisses my lips and pulls my tank top down so my boobs spill out into his hands. Mindful of the fact that I said they hurt a little bit, he kneads them softly before he lowers his face down and plants some kisses on them. Down below, he takes himself out of me and kisses me on my lips again. "You know I like it when you scream…" He kisses my lips once more. He kisses from my lips down to my chest and from my chest down to my navel. He kisses all over the inside of my thighs first…

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><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

She props herself up on her elbows and looks down to watch me. I move my head over just a little and circle my tongue around her hole. I only do this because I know it's her favorite. Just like she knows doing it from the back is my favorite, I know that oral is hers. And I'll do anything to please her. I always make sure she gets hers before I get mine. Call me strange, but I think it's awfully rude when the guy cums before he makes his girl cum. That's not me. I'll make sure she gets hers first; always. I think that goes back to me caring about her so much. I mean, if she was just some random chick off the street that I was screwing for the hour, I wouldn't really care if she got hers or not. But it's Jo. She comes first.

I want to hear her scream and she's usually pretty good with holding back all of her moans and screams but I know when I eat her, she usually can't help but scream if I'm doing the job right. I don't know what her deal about screaming is. I think it's hot and it makes me feel good about myself, you know? When I got her screaming, it lets me know that I'm doing my job. When I slide my tongue inside her, she finally lets out a moan that's loud enough for me to hear without question. I swear Jo's moan is the prettiest thing in this world. She puts her hand against the back of my head and stuffs my face deep between her legs. I love when she does that. I focus mainly on her clit, working it with my tongue and eventually sucking on it and only it. "Ahhh! Oooohhh…." She pulls my hair hard then rubs the back of my head. I tease her clit with my tongue real fast. She presses her lips together hard and hums. "Mmmmmm…." She keeps pushing my head deeper between her legs. I reach down, hold her open and stick my tongue inside it. "Ooooohhh my god…. My god, my god…." I curl my tongue upwards and drag it out. "Mmmm yes..." I focus on her clit again and she just keeps gasping. "Uh, uh,… uh… just like that…"

I spread her open again and push my two fingers inside her. She moans and moves back and forth, riding my hand. While I finger her, I suck on her clit some more. She squeals and squirms back and forth. I have to hold her still. "Ahhhhhhhh!" She puts an arch in her back and holds my head right where it is. She's getting louder… I keep pumping my fingers in and out of her. I've had sex with her like four times before and she still never ceases to amaze me with how amazing her body is. My favorite part would have to be what's between her legs though. She's just perfect. She's so tight and I've never had sex with someone that gets as wet as she does. I pull my fingers out and drag her by her thighs more into my face, giving her clit one more lick.. "Uh…baby…" She says in a slight whisper.

I push my fingers back inside her and kiss from between her legs up to her neck again. With my free hand, I pull her boobs out of her bra. I'm still not good at unstrapping bras so she helps me take it off. I toss it on the floor, not missing a beat with fingering her. I pull one of her boobs into my mouth. I'm a boob kind of guy. Some guys like ass but me? I like boobs. And her boobs are so amazing. They were already fucking perfect before, but they're huge now. Did I mention how perfect her boobs are? She has the tiniest little nipples, I can't ever help sucking on them. I'm sucking on her nipple so hard that it becomes hard and erect in my mouth. I keep fingering her and sucking on her boobs. I'd better enjoy all of this because A, I won't be able to do much with her boobs here in a little while, and B, I know Jo and I know that when she starts picking up the serious weight, she's NOT gonna let me touch her. I move over to her other boob and involuntarily grunt while I suck on that one. "Mmmm mmmm…." I pull my fingers out again and massage her clit in circles with them. I stop sucking her boob and kiss her deeply. She kisses me back, interrupted by a spur of moans into my mouth.

I'm BEYOND ready to just fuck her again, but I want to make her cum first. And she doesn't squirt when I'm pumping her…the only time she squirts is when I'm eating her and fingering her for some reason. So I shove my fingers back inside her, kiss her on her lips and finger her so hard and fast that she struggles to breathe…and I love the sound of her gasping. I curve my fingers slightly so that with every time my fingers pull out her legs shake. She gets SUPER loud when I do that, which in turn, makes me smile through the fact that I'm kissing her. That's exactly what I wanted her to do. "AHHH AHHH AHH…. AWWWHHHH…. OOOOHHH….." She bites my bottom lip and keeps moaning. I keep my fingers inside her and move them in a "come here" motion. "Ahhh…. FUCK….A…lex…" While she moans, she squirts all over my hand and arm. She said my name…..which is a new thing. She's never actually moaned out my name during it. I smirk and keep finger-fucking her. I let her finish cumming before I stop fingering her. Her toes curl under and she breathes heavy. "Oh shit…" She's all out of breath. She told me that she doesn't do that often. She told me that she's only done it a couple times before me and I can't help but wonder if it's because nobody else ever knew how to make her. She's done it the last three times we've had sex and it's always from the same thing. Any other guy she's been with probably don't know what the hell they're doing to her. She does it for me almost every time. "…Why do you do that to me?" She whines, as soon as she catches her breath.

I smile and kiss her cheek. "Why not?"

"You know I hate doing that. It's so messy." She sits up and kisses me on my lips. "It's my turn…and don't stop me." She puts her hands against my shoulders and pushes me down slowly. She kisses me on my neck and starts to suck on my neck the way I suck on hers when I want to get her wet. Except, she's sucking on my neck and she's not doing anything but making me harder and harder. She stops kissing my neck and slides down so her forehead is level with my abs. She holds me at the base and runs her tongue all along it, tracing from the bottom all the way to the tip with the tip of her tongue. Before she stuffs me in her mouth, she looks up at me and licks her lips. If I had to guess, I'd guess that this isn't the first time she's done this before. And I know she has. She told me she's only done this once before and I believe her because Jo's not the type to just stick anything in her mouth. But for someone that's only done it once, she's mindblowing at it. She curls her lips over, sticks her tongue out and puts as much of me as she can fit into her mouth, deep in her throat. I close my eyes and tangle my hands through her hair. Not a lot of girls deepthroat. She's a blessing. She slides it out of her mouth and sucks on the tip, tracing along it with her tongue again then back to taking it deep in her throat.

"Fuck…" I mutter through clenched teeth. I look down and watch her while she works her magic. And magic is what it is. Why haven't I let her do this before? If I knew what I was missing….if I knew how good at this she really is… I swear I would've let her do this a long time ago. She keeps looking up at me while she sucks with her lips along the tip of me. She uses her hand while she sucks me off too. Damn, she's good at this. "Uhhh…" She darts her head on and off it quick and licks from my balls to the head slowly. I push her head down to deepthroat me again and she takes it with ease. "Damn…" I grab ahold of her ponytail and squeeze it to bear with how good at this she is. She takes me out of her mouth and spits on it. She uses her hands and rubs the spit all over it before she puts it back in her mouth. I push her head on and off it and she just lets me. _She's gotta stop before I cum She's about to make me cum and then I won't be able to finish_. I put my hands under her arms and pull her up so her face is level with mine once again. I kiss her on her lips and put my arms around her waist so she won't pull away from me. I can tell that she wasn't ready to stop doing that but I can also tell that she knows that she HAD to because I was about to bust.

I sit up and pull her against my lap while I kiss her. She puts her hands on the back of my head and kisses me hard. She puts her legs on either side of me so she's in a straddle position and rests her hands on my shoulders. In addition to being good at giving head, she's also AMAZING at riding so needless to say, I'm excited that she's about to do it. I put my face between her boobs and use one hand to hold her up and the other hand to put myself inside her. She pushes down against my shoulders and holds herself up so I can get in there. When I have the tip of myself in, I put both my hands against her ass and keep my face between her boobs while she slides down all the way on it.

She tilts her head back and I pull her nipple into my mouth again. I squeeze my hands on her ass and feel her long hair dangle down and tickle my hands. I can't get over how fucking gorgeous she is. I've been with her for a while now but I'm still amazed at how someone can be so pretty and so hot at the same exact time. She's just as pretty as she is sexy. I lick her nipple with the flat head of my tongue and kiss between her boobs. She doesn't wait for me to start thrusting upwards. Instead, she starts riding me. She rides me fast and so hard I hear nothing but the skin of both of our groins slapping against each other. She's definitely not a beginner at this either…she's amazing at this. "Oh, yes…. Ohhh….. ohhh…" She looks down and makes full eye contact with me while she's moaning. I kiss her on her lips again and lean forward to look back at her ass. She slides down all the way on it and rides it from base to tip. "Loud enough for you?" She says through a moan, whispering in my ear. She pushes her ass out further and slams down on it so hard that me, myself…let out a groan. Shit, she's gonna make me bust. She leans to the side and kisses my neck so I can see behind her. "Yeah…. Yeah…" She's moaning and talking in my ear. If I could get her to moan as much as she likes to talk to me while we're having sex, I'd be all set. She rides me slower and in circles, so I can really feel how tight, wet and perfect she is. She stays down, all the way on it and swirls her hips in circles. _Never leave this woman. Even if you didn't love her as much as you do, never leave her. She's amazing in bed._

I grab her boobs and squeeze them. I can't stay silent anymore. I grunt while she rides in circles. "Good girl…. In circles… slow…" I groan and pull her other nipple in my mouth. I reach back and squeeze her ass again. I go back up to her neck and suck on her neck. I slide my hands up to her back and feel her hair dangling. I kiss all over her neck and her chest just because I appreciate her, you know? It's rough sex, but it's still meaningful to me. I still love her and I appreciate her and sometimes, even simple kisses let her know that. So when I'm done giving her appreciation kisses, I go back to sucking on her boobs. I guess she caught her breath or something, because she starts riding me out of control again. She moves her hips so fast. She's probably a really good dancer, because the way she's swiveling her hips and moving, she sure seems like she would be. Damn… "Oooooohhhhh…. Shit… shit… shit…" She reaches back and shakes her hair. She holds onto my shoulders and bounces herself up and down on my shaft real fast. "AHHH… AH…. I'm gonna cum again…." She curls her hands through my hair and keeps riding me. "Alex…." She moans my name again. I could get used to her saying my name…

I kiss her and hold her down on it so it doesn't come out while we switch positions. I wrap my arm around her waist and lay her on her back. I kiss her lips once again and but my weight down on my elbow as I lay behind her. I move her so she's lying on her side with me. Naturally, she bends her leg and puts it behind mine. I wrap my arms around her boobs and kiss her neck while I drill her like this. She holds herself up on her elbow too while the both of us are laying on our sides. I guess she really likes this position, because she kicks her foot back and her leg shakes. She's gonna orgasm and I'm just waiting on it. I kiss her cheek and keep pumping in and out of her, just waiting. "Don't stop… don't stopppp…." She looks back at me, moaning so mellifluously that it wouldn't surprise me if she could sing. I put my chin inside her shoulder blade and hold her leg up. My god, she's beautiful. Her eyes are so big and pretty and her lips are just perfect. I grab a handful of her thick hair and push it in her deeper, just because she's so pretty. I'm careful not to pull her hair too hard though. "A…Alex… don't stop… DON'T STOP…" I hold her leg up and slide it in there even deeper. "OOOHHH…." I can tell she just came. Aside from the fact that I feel it running all over me, I can see it in her face. She's bright red and breathing so heavy.

When I'm sure she got hers, I hold her around her waist and slow down just as I bust. It's nice not having to worry about pulling out. Completely out of breath, she lays down flat against the floor and closes her eyes, breathing hard. Her usually bouncy, wavy hair is damp and very dense. So dense that it just falls flat against her chest. I pull it out of her when we're all done and kiss her cheek. She keeps her eyes closed and holds onto my hand while she's catching her breath. I bring her hand up to my mouth and kiss it. I push her hand away from my mouth and study it. It looks so pretty with the ring on it. I stroke my thumb over the ring and give myself a silent congrats. I'm just glad that it fit right. When I was measuring it in her sleep, I didn't know if I was doing it right. I was just hoping that I was measuring her ring size right and it just so happened that I did. Still propped up on my elbow, I run my hand through her hair. "…Jo?" Her eyes are closed and her breathing is slow and steady…I think she might have fallen asleep. "…Night." Even though it's only like four in the afternoon. I sigh and pick myself up off the ground. I yank on my pair of boxers and pick her up, even though she's still naked. She can take a shower later. I get that she tires out fast these days. I take her to my bedroom and lay her in my bed.

I pull covers over her and lean down to kiss her. "I love you." I make sure her entire body is covered before I leave her to clean up the baby's room. I sigh and pick up her clothes off the floor. Luckily for us, we didn't spill paint anywhere. I bawl her clothes up in a ball and toss them out into the hallway until I do laundry later. I put the cap on the can of paint and seal it back up. One can of paint was enough. We didn't have enough to cover the windowsills and the baseboards and the door but that's okay because I had planned on painting the baseboards, the windowsills and the door either pink or blue once we find out what we're having. I gather up the paint trays and the rollers and take them into the bathroom so I can soak them in the bathtub that we never use. I'm not sure why the house has a shower and a bathtub and then another bathtub but it does and we never use the second bathtub but maybe now that Aubree or Nathan's gonna be here soon, the extra tub will be put to use. I stick the paint stuff in the tub and run some hot water inside of them.

If I'm being honest, I gotta say that I'm actually a little bit worried now that Izzie's back. I don't know if she's gonna stay or if she's just gonna go back to Chehalis when she realizes that I'm serious about not wanting her. I hope she leaves again but if she doesn't, I think me and Jo and Aubree/Nathan might have to move somewhere. I don't want Jo to have to deal with seeing Iz every day. I really just hope she leaves. I know it's probably not the best tactic, but I won't lie. I have some unaddressed feelings lying underneath for Iz and I don't want to address them. I don't even want to think about her anymore. I don't want her to be a factor to me any longer so I just need her to leave so I can be happy with Jo and the baby.

I don't know, I just hope that she does leave. I want to be with Jo for a very long time and if Iz is back for good, she might ruin that. I really want her gone. I'm not staying with Jo just because she's having my baby and once Iz realizes that, the better off she'll be. I'd be lying if I said that the baby didn't have a little bit of something to do with the reason I'm with Jo but it's not totally the reason. The only part the baby plays is that he or she is gonna be my family. And what I mean by that is this: If Jo was the world's biggest bitch towards me, I wouldn't leave her because of that baby. But she's not a bitch and I really do love her so that's all the more reason for me to stay. The baby plays a small part in the fact that I'm with her, but if she wasn't pregnant, I'd be with Jo anyway because I'm crazy about her. I fell hard and fast for her and now that I've got her, I'm never giving her up.

And there's nothing in this world that Izzie could do to persuade me to let her go.

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><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"1…1…125 and a half." Dr. Maxwell estimates as she drags the weights on the scale to measure me. I step off the scale and back onto the cool linoleum floor. My feet are cold almost immediately as I step from the warm rubber of the scale onto the tile floor. She scribbles my weight down onto my chart and puts it down on the counter when she's done. "You've only gained two pounds, Jo. Two pounds since the first time I've seen you." I walk over to the exam table and sit back up on it. Alex puts his hand behind my back to make sure I don't fall while I'm pulling myself up on it. Really? Only two pounds? Because I feel like a fucking blimp and I'm only fourteen weeks and two days. "I want you to start putting on more weight. Your baby's gonna be a tiny little thing." I put my hands against my knees and sigh. More weight? I'm already huge! "How much do you eat? What would you estimate your calorie intake to be?"

"…I eat a lot." I shrug my shoulders. "I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner…and like…five snacks during the day because I'm always hungry." I lay down flat against the table and put my hand against my stomach. "Last night, I ate two whoppers from Burger King and a frosty with French fries from Wendys. I eat a lot." Her scale must be defective because I've been eating like a freaking cow lately. And I'm huge. "I'm constantly eating. I don't know how I'm not picking up weight. I eat a lot, don't I?" I look over towards Alex for reassurance. Even though we still don't live together, we spend a great deal of time together and he's always around when I'm eating or having a weird craving. Matter of fact, he was the one that ran out and grabbed my frosty and French fries and my whoppers last night. _Of course. Of course I'm doing something bad for the baby. I can't do anything right. I can't even gain weight right. _"I eat a lot…right?" I look at Alex some more. I feel myself about to cry. Alex nods his head and holds my hand.

"Well how are your stress levels?" Since I'm lying down, Dr. Maxwell walks over and lifts my shirt up. I don't need a pelvic exam today which means no gown and no nakedness. But she did ask me if I would wear something loose. I wasn't supposed to come see her for another two weeks; when I'm sixteen weeks, but she called me and asked me to come in today because she needs to run Alex's blood sample ASAP to make sure he can't pass anything to the baby and she's gonna be out of town two weeks from now at this conference. Which means I have to wait until I'm eighteen weeks to find out if we're having an Aubree or a Nathan now. But on the up side, my first trimester is over which means I'm not gonna miscarry. Yay. "Sometimes stress can make it difficult to gain weight during pregnancy…and if you're still suffering from morning sickness…"

"I don't have morning sickness anymore. And I don't have anything to be stressed out about…" I lie to her face, but only because I don't want Alex to feel bad. Alex looks at me with a sullen look on his face because he KNOWS that I'm lying. It's been two and a half weeks since Izzie came back and she's still here. She's not gone yet. So yeah, I've been a stressed out mess ever since then. Alex hasn't done anything with her. He ignores her and pretends like she doesn't even work in the hospital but the fact that I still have to see her every day and watch her give me death stares from across the cafeteria while I sit with Alex doesn't help. And not to mention, she's been talking about me. I mean, I guess I expected that though. She just tells all her friends up in derm (and some of Alex's friends too) that I'm the woman that her fiancé cheated on her with. And she told everyone that I'm pregnant before I even had the chance to tell people so now everyone thinks I'm nothing but a whore and the attendings look at me like I'm a pity case when I don't want to be. They all pity me because I deal with her gossiping about me and my belly is growing. Alex swears if I ignore her, it'll all go away. But when will the stares go away? When will I stop feeling humiliated? I've been in a relationship with Alex for nearly three months now and I'm about four months pregnant with his kid. Isn't it time for things to stop being so embarrassing?

"Well I'm gonna set you up with my colleague. I want you to see my colleague in two weeks for a weight check. I'll have him fax me your results while I'm away and if your weight is still down, you and I are gonna have to look into some plans. Until then, I'm gonna change your prenatal vitamin to something with twice as much folic acid in it to make sure your baby's getting nutrients from you. You're entirely too thin for my liking." She pushes her fingers into my stomach. "But your uterus is feeling good. Your uterus is nice and prominent." She pushes against my stomach some more and lifts my shirt up higher. "Oh…" She sounds surprised. My heart jumps up into my throat. "What's this?" She lifts up my shirt some more and tilts her head down so she can see the little bit of skin on my back that's exposed. "Are you allergic to something, Jo?"

"…No, they're hives." Stress hives… I don't want to make Alex feel bad though. "Um… I'm allergic to wool." Which isn't a lie. "I'm allergic to wool and I slept with a wool blanket last night…I didn't even know that it was wool but it was and I broke out. They'll go away in a little bit." They'll be gone in a few days. I get stress hives all the time. I used to get them like once a week back in high school actually. But stress hives are totally different from my allergic reaction to wool. I just get all stuffy and sneezy and my eyes water when I'm exposed to wool. I don't get hives. Alex still knows that I'm lying, so he kisses my hand. But I don't think he knows that I'm lying about the hives not coming from stress. I'm pretty sure I gave him that lame ass wool excuse about the hives as well. So maybe he doesn't know I'm lying. I don't know anymore.

"Don't scratch at them." She puts my shirt back down and just leaves it open around my belly. She pulls my pants down just a little tiny bit. "So I'm just gonna check on the baby and see how he is growing. Make sure she looks right for her gestation. And I'll get you a couple more pictures of the little guy or gal to take home today and I'll write your script for your new vitamins and then I'll set you up with my colleague, Dr. Breckner for a weight check in two weeks. Sound good?" I just nod my head. I look over at Alex again and he seems so upset with himself. I'm not mad at him though. It's not his fault that Izzie came back. Dr. Maxwell puts some purple gel on my belly and grabs an ultrasound wand. I gotta be honest, I'm glad that she's not sticking anything inside of me anymore. The abdominal ultrasound is much more comfortable than the transvaginal one. Even if the gel is just a little bit cold. I sigh and look over at the screen that she set up for us. "Would you guys like to know the gender or do you want to wait until the birth to be surprised?" She makes the picture pretty clear before she turns on the wand.

"…I thought you wouldn't be able to tell us for a while still. I'm only thirteen weeks." I look over at the screen and wait for her to tune in the picture of the baby. "Don't the genitals come in at like…fifteen weeks or something?"

"Genitals come in around nine or ten weeks, actually. It's just that sometimes they take a while to become prominent." She makes the picture clear and all I see is a big old head with a fat belly…and it looks like… what the hell? "You guys are gonna have a little thumbsucker on your hands." Dr. Maxwell looks at us with a big, hearty smile on her face. "See it…sucking on its thumb?" She points to the obvious silhouette of a tiny arm bent up to its head. It could also be covering his or her face but it looks to me that it's sucking a thumb. That's so cute. "I'll print this one out for you. The thumb-sucking shot."

"…Awww." I'm so emotional today. A tear slips out of my eye. "Alex, we can take back all the pacifiers we bought. He'll like his thumb more than the pacifiers." For the first time in the entire visit, Alex perks up a little bit. I look back at the screen instead of at him. "So you can tell us the gender today?"

"If the legs aren't crossed in a way that doesn't allow me to see, then yes." She moves the wand around and I watch as the screen turns to see my baby's legs. "Sometimes it gets difficult detecting the gender so sometimes we can be wrong. Because all babies start out the same. All babies start out with two ovaries but around ten weeks, the ovaries will either stay up high and stay ovaries for a little girl or they'll drop down into a scrotum to become a boy. And the clitoris will either stay tiny for a girl or it'll grow large into a penis. So sometimes we can be wrong. The only way I'll be able to tell you for sure today is if you're having a boy. Because by about twelve weeks, the penis is very prominent and visible. Basically, if I don't see a penis today, it'll be a girl. But that doesn't mean that the ovaries won't drop down to become testicles, you know? It's just that USUALLY, a boy will be a boy by now." She zooms in. "So what are we hoping for? A boy or a girl?"

"…I want a boy." I smile at the screen because I can clearly see some feet. "His name's Nathaniel Alexander Karev if he's a boy." I keep staring at the screen, completely mesmerized by the fact that my little baby is on the screen. He's so cute. "Mommy wants a Nathan so bad…"

"Too bad it's a girl." Alex is completely tuned into the screen as well.

"Do we have a name for a girl?" Dr. Maxwell asks. She's still zooming in between the baby's legs.

"Aubree Jo Karev." Alex sounds so proud when he says that. He squeezes my hand. "Look babe…there's a booty on the screen." He motions his head towards the screen. I squint my eyes and yeah, I see two little buttcheeks. It's cute. His butt is cute, like his daddy's butt. "…I think I see a penis. Damn it." He sighs hard and lets go of my hand. "…I gotta go to the ATM." We bet fifty bucks on the gender. HELL YEAH! I GOT A NATHAN AND I WON FIFTY BUCKS!

"Oh yeah!" I celebrate as easy as I can without disrupting the ultrasound. "…Is he right?" I ask Dr. Maxwell. Because he very well could be wrong, you know? His OB rotation was so long ago and he only deals with babies when they're born anymore; he doesn't deal with them in utero. So his OB skills could be a little rusty.

"…He was actually wrong. He was looking at the umbilical cord." Dr. Maxwell bursts my bubble. "I don't see anything yet…I don't have a clear picture." She keeps zooming and cropping the picture. "I see a butt and some feet…I can't tell anything yet so don't get your hopes up." She says. Alex grabs my hand again. "…How does an Aubree sound?" She says, surely this time. "I see a clitoris between two labia…about 80% sure she's a girl and gonna stay a girl. See the ovaries up high? They're too high to drop…" She zooms again and shows us. It looks like a little hamburger. Like there's a tiny hamburger between my baby's legs. I see exactly what she means by a clitoris between two vaginal lips. It's an Aubree.

"HA!" Alex nearly jumps out of his seat. "It's really a girl!? NO WAY!" He's so smiley and happy that I have no choice but to be smiley and happy.

I thought I was gonna be really disappointed if it was a girl but I'm…not. I'm actually really happy. I can't peel my eyes away from the screen. "…Aww. Hi Aubree…Hi sweetie." I wipe my eyes because of course, I'm crying. Stupid pregnancy hormones. "My little boo boo…Aubby." It sounds right, too. Like to say Aubree…it sounds right. "…You're totally not getting fifty bucks off me though."

"I don't care." He's smiling at the screen. "I told you. Told you I was gonna get my baby girl. I knew it. Daddy makes GIRLS. Daddy don't make boys."

"Shut up." I swat at him. Aubree…. I'm gonna have an Aubree. I'm scared of that. But I'm happy. Lots of pink in my future. I'm so happy. Aubree. I keep looking at her little vagina on the screen_. Hi Aubree. Sorry for calling you 'him' all the time…_


	48. I Refuse To

"You do remember a few months back when you and Dr. Edwards were synthesizing genes for me, don't you?" Dr. Bailey punches her code into the keypad that locks the genome lab and pushes the door to it open. I used to think that the attendings were just being super nice to me, giving me light work duty and all but now I'm almost sure of it. I've been inside the OR lately but I haven't been scrubbing in on anything cool. Mostly just hernia repairs and muscle biopsies. I haven't seen any transplants or amputations or bone repairs. It's like an unspoken rule that I'm not allowed on Ortho anymore because of all the x-rays and stuff. Bummer, because I really like Ortho. "I think I had you two synthesizing cancer genes. Can you handle another p53 synthesis or is that too much for your tiny little brain to handle alone?" She logs into the computer program I'll need and goes over to the cooler where all the live tissue is kept.

"I can synthesize the gene." I pull out a chair and plop down in it because my back hurts today. I would rather be on a more interesting service, like Cardio or Ortho for example. I would even like to be watching a cool surgery from the gallery. But with the way my body is feeling today, I guess I am just a little bit glad that I'm gonna be sitting in the genome lab all day, synthesizing. My back really aches today for some reason and I don't know if standing at an operating table would've done much for it. "Do you just want one synthesis or two? Because the last time me and Stephanie synthesized the gene, she found one way and I found another to do it. Do you want me to do both ways?" I thought for sure that Dr. Bailey would leave me alone in the genome lab by myself but instead, she pulls a chair up right next to me and sits down. "…Or did you want me to actually show you the synthesis?"

"In preparation for the board exam coming up pretty soon, I let Dr. Grey take on my three surgeries for today, which means that I'm free." She turns her chair so that the both of us can look at the computer screen equally, at the same time. "And since I'm free, you and I are going to work on synthesizing all kinds of things today; from cancer genes to HIV viruses." She moves my hand off the mouse and takes over. "And if you're good…maybe I'll let you perform my appendectomy scheduled for tomorrow…just so you can redeem yourself." She starts clicking around on the computer and I just watch. I realized that Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grey are actually pretty decent people when they're separate. It's when the two of them are together that things get shitty for us interns. "That is…if you're up to it."

"That's fine with me." I sigh and lean forward, trying to seem super interested in what she's doing on the computer. I wish the attendings would just treat me like they treat Dr. Kepner. She's about to drop her baby any second now and she's still working in trauma. She's still kicking ass in surgeries and in the ER and stuff. I don't get why they can't just treat me like that. See, this is what I was afraid of. I was afraid that they were gonna baby me once they found out about me being knocked up. And ever since Izzie came back to work here, it's been so much worse. To everyone, I'm currently nothing but "Poor Little Wilson" and I don't want to be. I don't need anyone to feel bad for me and I damn sure don't need anyone to worry about Aubree. She's fine. I'm taking good care of her…or at least I'm trying to. "…Dr. Bailey, why would we need to synthesize an HIV virus though?" I pull my mind out of the Izzie-infested, Aubree-centered thoughts in my head and try to focus on the task at hand. "Unless you're looking for a cure… is that why?"

"Don't worry about that until we get there. I have big things in mind for that, actually." She pulls her hand away from the computer mouse and stares at the screen. I'm not usually this quiet and this boring to work with. It's just that I can't get into really talking to Dr. Bailey. She's intimidating and I never know what to say to her. She doesn't strike me as one that likes to talk about her personal life and she's not funny enough to joke with. She's just really hard for me to read, so I find it easier to be quiet. Because I don't know what to say, it's silent between the two of us for a few tender moments before she breaks it again. "How are you doing, Wilson?"

I rise up my eyebrow. "Me?" I fold my hands in my lap and look at her because even though I didn't have parents to raise me, I do know that it's rude to not make eye contact with your superiors when they're speaking to you. I'll teach that to my Aubree. She'll be respectful. "I'm…alright. A little hungry because I didn't eat much breakfast this morning but other than that…I'm well." Is she just looking for something to say to me? Because it kind of seems like a meaningless conversation. Kind of like when people ask about the weather. It's pointless but it's banter enough to make it less awkward. "How are you?" I ask her back just to be polite.

"I meant with that baby." She flashes a quick, irritated look at me then goes back to staring at the screen. "I heard through the surgical grapevine that you're having a baby. Now is that true or did someone lie to me?" Even when she's trying to be nice, she's intimidating. Like even if I did mind telling her about Aubree, I feel like I'd be obligated to. She's not leaving me much of an out to refuse talking about the happenings of my womb with her. "Although I don't think that Karev would lie to my face about that, so if I'm considering my source…"

I play with a strand of my hair out of nervousness and cross my legs to seem ladylike. But I can't keep them crossed because it's kind of uncomfortable to have my legs crossed. "Oh… yeah. I am." I guess talking to her beats sitting in silence, even if we are discussing Aubree. "I'm…feeling better now that the first trimester is over. I really notice a difference. I'm doing well."

"Your first three months is over?" Her attention completely diminishes off the computer as her eyes flash down to my abdomen, where my hands are inadvertently resting. Sometimes my hands just instinctively go there and I don't realize it until I have to take them away. It's just a weird little occurrence. "Shouldn't you be bursting? You're as thin as a spaghetti noodle before cooked, what's wrong with you?"

"I haven't really been gaining a lot of weight. It's an ongoing issue that my obstetrician and I are battling. I don't know what's wrong with me because I eat like nobody's business but I still won't gain anything." I haven't started taking the new prenatal pills that Dr. Maxwell gave me yet. She gave them to me last week when she told me that we were having an Aubree, but she told me that I could finish off the current bottle I'm on before I begin the new bottle. I think I start the new bottle tonight because I took the last one this morning. And starting with the new bottle, I have to take the pill twice a day. "The scrubs…" I find myself beginning to explain myself to her because, well, I don't really want Dr. Bailey to think there's something wrong with me and my kid, you know? It's just a pride/paranoia thing. "The scrubs make me look thinner than what I am, 'cause they're so baggy. I actually do have a pretty big gut." I pull my scrubs back so they're tighter against my body so she can see. Weirdly enough, she seems really interested. She reaches her hand out but pulls back and looks at me, asking my permission. I nod my head at her to let her know it's okay if she touches it. She puts her hand against my stomach and rests it there. "My doctor keeps telling me that my uterus is okay though. She says she can feel the top of it and that's good. I'm just not picking up any weight." I look down at my belly while she touches it and sweep my hair out of the way.

"Did you have your glucose test yet?" She asks, her fingers digging into the spot below my bellybutton like she's checking for something. I wrinkle my brow and just look at her. I don't even know what a glucose test is. This is my first baby and I'm only 28 years old. I'm still nothing but a clueless kid myself. "I'll take that facial expression as a no." She bends down so she's eyelevel with my belly and keeps pushing on it. She's gonna make me have to pee. "You know I tried out a fellowship in Pediatrics…"

"What?! You…in Peds?" It's inevitable I crack a smile at that. No kidding. Dr. Bailey in Peds? Yeah right. "But like… General is your thing." I politely slide her hand out of the way and lift up my scrub top. For some reason, I'm completely comfortable with letting Dr. Bailey touch my bump. I don't like for Steph to touch it and I HATE when Alex touches it, but I'm oddly okay with her touching it. I hold my scrub top up and slide my thermal up as well. I always wear a thermal underneath my scrubs anymore because I've been getting colder than usual and the thermal actually helps push my belly in so I don't look as fat as I really am. "…Why didn't you stick with it?" Now that she mentioned it, I guess I can see her in Peds. She's touching my belly so gingerly, like she might break me and she's SMILING. Dr. Bailey never smiles. "I mean, what made you go back to General surgery?"

"It got too rough on me." She's back to her serious Dr. Bailey voice. "Don't let anyone ever tell you that Pediatrics is a specialty for weak people…for babysitters. Okay?" I nod my head, still watching her hand push my belly. ""Pediatrics is rough. Everyone has this stigma around it like it's a blow-off specialty but it's not. I've done a lot of rotations in my day and I've seen a lot of difficult things. But watching babies die is the worst. You've gotta be pretty tough to deal with that. That's why I wasn't so surprised when Karev chose it. He's tough enough for it. Takes a special kind of person to be okay after watching babies die. I'm not tough enough for that." She looks up at me. "You think about a specialty yet?"

"I'm keeping my options open." I move my hair out of the way once again because it keeps falling in my face. "I think I'm leaning towards Orthopedics though. I really like working with Dr. Torres and I think it's cool how…no two bones are the same. I like how you can have one patient with a broken wrist and all it needs is splinted but you can have another that needs traction pins. But I'm not really sure yet. I haven't spent enough time on Neuro with Dr. Shepherd to know if I like it or hate it. So I'm just keeping my options open." She nods her head at me like she was paying serious attention to everything I said as she takes her hands away from my belly. I put my shirt down and cover Aubree back up. I kind of like talking to her. Talking to her doesn't make being on General completely suck. "Do you have…kids, Dr. Bailey?"

"I have a three year old little boy." She swivels her chair around and starts synthesizing the gene finally, which basically lets me know that it's time to stop talking. My hands fold over my belly and I catch myself this time. If I'm being honest, I am finding it sort of hard to concentrate. I really didn't think my weight was that big of an issue, you know? I just thought that as long as Dr. Maxwell could feel what she needed to feel during my exams, Aubree would be okay. But even Dr. Bailey seemed shocked when I told her how far along I am. I'm really starting to worry about my peanut. "You in there, Wilson?" She speaks to me, which forces me to stop thinking about Aubree and start focusing on this synthesis. I nod my head respectfully and lean forward to envelop myself in the synthesis. I think she can tell that I'm not totally focused though, because she turns to me again. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." I lick my lips and shake my head. I don't want to burden her with my personal problems. I mean, it already seemed kind of strange that Dr. Bailey of all people was touching my belly and actually being nice to me. I think I found her weakness. Dr. Bailey's soft for babies, I think. So she's not completely mean, clearly.

"Don't give me that. I'm short, not stupid…I know when someone has something on their mind. And you have something on your mind…and it's definitely not medicine." She pushes the computer mouse away from her and folds her hands, looking at me like an impatient mother. I find it so hard to be aggressive towards Dr. Bailey. She has the ability to make me feel like a toddler at all times. I always feel so small around her, like I'm obligated to just tell her every single little thing that runs through my mind because it's like she'd find out regardless. I never had a mother, but I assume that this is what one feels like. Dr. Bailey feels like a mom. "What's on your mind there, Wilson?"

I grab onto a strand of my ponytail and twist it around my finger and stare at my split ends just because I can't look her in her eye for some reason. I feel so silly. I mean call me crazy, but I really feel like she doesn't care. I feel like she doesn't care about my personal problems, but at the same time, she wouldn't have asked if she didn't care so maybe she's just really good at fronting and faking like she doesn't care. I don't even know. "…Since your son is three, does that mean you had him when you were…a resident or something?" I pull on the piece of hair I have around my finger. "…Can you like…give me advice?" I lift my head up and look at her out of respect. "I know I shouldn't be worrying about my personal problems while I'm at work but you just told me that you have a three year old baby and… I don't know…I just… have hope now. I feel like it's possible…"

"I know I tell you guys that your personal problems don't need to be brought into the hospital, and that's true. I don't need my residents and interns airing their dirty laundry at work because that's unprofessional and it can be distracting. We as surgeons don't have time for distractions in the workplace when there are lives in our hands that need to be saved." She starts with me. I just nod my head and bite my lip. I didn't really ask her to lecture me about it. I already know everything she's saying. "But it's kind of hard for you to leave your personal problems at home…especially when your personal problems are hiding in your stomach somewhere." She softens up a little. "It's possible to be a mother and a surgeon. You just have to figure out how balance, really."

"Yeah I get that part, it's the whole mothering thing I'm scared about." I sigh. "I just feel like I'm doing this and I'm gonna do this alone." I don't really want to go into details about my life right now because I don't want to answer questions about it. "I didn't come from a good life and neither did Alex. So I'm just kind of worried about how this will all happen. I've had lots of jobs before, but…there aren't any instructions on how to be a mother. And taking care of my daughter is a very important job, isn't it? I don't know what I'm doing…"

"…Honey." The look on her face is so sullen, like she's telling me that I don't have to worry. She shakes her head at me and puts her hand on my arm, comfortingly. "If there's one thing I know about taking care of a baby, it's that the best lessons come from mistakes. And you're gonna make a ton of them." The tone of her voice changes to something really loving. "You ever hear the saying, 'It takes a village to raise a child'?" She asks and I nod. "Your baby girl's got the best damn village around. Sure we around here don't know you much, but...we know Karev." I nod again, listening intently. "We know Karev really well around here. He's one of my babies. One of the babies I raised." I crack a smile at that. "My point is… even though the staff around here doesn't know the interns very well, we are very attached to your resident boyfriend…and he's having a baby. That practically makes me a grandma. So between me, Dr. Robbins, Dr. Grey, Dr. Yang… your baby girl's got a grandmother, three aunts…and we'll help you." She nods. "We all love babies around here."

"…Thank you." I sigh, purely out of relief. I guess maybe that's why Alex isn't so nervous about being a parent. Because he has every reason to be scared, you know? He's gonna be a new dad without a dad himself to show him how to do the job right. But he's not even scared. Maybe he's not scared because he knows that Aubree's gonna be born into a family of people that love him. These people don't love me much yet because I'm just a nothing little intern, but they love Alex. And they're gonna love Aubree because she is Alex's baby as well. So if what Dr. Bailey says is true… maybe I don't have much to worry about either. I just wanna do good. I want to be a good mother to Aubree. That's all.

**X X X **

"Are you staying over tonight or are you going home?" I'm not sure where he's headed off to, but he's been following me and walking with me for the last few minutes. I have to go pick up labs for Dr. Grey since she's too busy bumming Dr. Bailey's surgeries to get them herself. Three and a half syntheses later, Dr. Bailey finally let me go do some real surgery work for the last two hours of my shift. "And here. I asked Murphy what you ate for lunch today and she said you had a chicken sandwich and a salad from the cafeteria. Eat this." He hands me a double chocolate chip cookie. "You're supposed to be putting on weight, not eating like you're on a diet."

"…How is a sandwich and salad eating like I'm on a diet?" I don't really want the cookie but I know if I don't eat it, he's gonna bitch at me so rather than listen to him whine, I swipe the cookie from his hand and take a small bite of it. "And it depends. I work tomorrow morning at 8:00, what do you work?" It's unladylike, but I talk with my mouth full of cookie anyway. I'm kind of glad I took the cookie after all. I'm still not hungry but the cookie is good so I'm glad to have eaten it. "My car's fucked again so I'll need a ride to work. If you work around 8:00 tomorrow morning then I'll stay. If not, I'm staying home to catch a ride with Steph."

"I work at 7:30 tomorrow." He wipes something off my lip and keeps walking with me. "What's wrong with your car?"

"It's acting like it doesn't want to start again…the usual." I finish off the cookie and suck some chocolate off my thumb. Aubree likes chocolate chip cookies. I know she does because if she didn't, she'd let me know. I tried eating barbecue chips last night and she made me throw them all up before I even finished half the bag. She doesn't like barbecue chips I assume. "Shane tried to get it to kick over during lunchtime but nothing." I near the lab technician's desk and slow down. "So I'm fucked once again. It needs a new battery but I don't have sixty bucks to replace it."

"You need a new car, screw the battery." As if my car troubles are stressing him out, he runs his hand through his hair. "I'll run out when I get a free minute and take a look at it. Your keys in your locker?" He asks. I lean against the lab desk to wait for someone to come service me and nod my head. "So you're just gonna stay at my house tonight then?" Because I'm busy using my tongue to suck cookie from my back tooth, I nod my head. "You wanna go shopping when we get off then? See what kind of things we can pick up at Babies 'R Us? I saw this crib set that you'd like. It's…brown and wooden with pink bedding and stuff…I'll show it to you."

"…I just told you that I don't even have sixty bucks to replace the battery in my shitty car. What makes you think I have money to blow on a crib that our baby won't need for six more months, Alex? I don't get paid until Friday. We can go shopping on Friday." I drum my fingers along the desk of the lab technician, impatiently. I wish he'd get over here already. I just don't feel like talking to Alex about this anymore.

And in typical Alex fashion, he doesn't let it go. "See but…I want to go shopping tonight." He stretches his arms out and makes some kind of grunt. "And Aubree wants new stuff tonight. So daddy's and mommy are gonna take daddy's credit card and buy her a crib tonight, because what Aubree wants, Aubree gets." He makes that sound so playful but it's annoying to me. It's annoying because he's been buying everything and I feel so crappy. I should at least be able to pitch in for my own daughter's crib. I would be able to pitch in if he would just wait until Friday. "Aubree said please mommy…" I roll my eyes at that. He's been calling me "mommy" every chance he's been getting lately. I think it's because he came in the house the other night with a pink onesie that says "I LOVE MY MOMMY" on it and I threw it in the back of my closet. He balanced it out by getting a bib that says "Daddy's Girl" on it. Anyway, he's been calling me "mommy" ever since. I guess he's just trying to get me used to the idea but really, all he's doing is annoying me.

"Oh, Aubree told you to beg me?" I raise my eyebrows at him. He nods his head, my favorite goofy smile spread all across his face. I can't help but smile. "You're lucky I love Aubree's dad…otherwise…" I just shake my head and lean up to kiss him. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Like… a house to haunt?"

"You're so funny." He shakes his head and gives me a kiss on my lips. "I'll see you after work though. I have to go back to Robbins and run on her post-ops." He wipes something from the corner of my mouth; cookie I assume. "I'll see you."

"See ya." I sigh and lean against the lab technician's desk with my elbows. He slaps my ass as he walks away, but when I reach back to swing at him again, he's already out of my reach. I shake my head at him and reach forward to ring the bell on the desk. While I wait, I hold my hand out in front of me and look at my ring. I wonder how much it cost him. Alex is always telling me not to worry about money and stuff because he's got everything taken care of. But really, he's been spoiling me lately and I don't like it. I mean, I like it but I wish he wouldn't spend his money on me when we're having a baby. He bought me a ring and just last week, he came in the house with three new pairs of scrub pants for me, a bra to match my new cup size that fit perfectly, a new pair of shoes because my old ones don't support my feet and five new outfits for Aubree. I know Alex has money but he doesn't have to flash it like that. I'm not with him for the money, you know? I just want him.

I twist the ring around my finger and stare at it. I've been in the shower with it on twice since I've had it and it hasn't even changed color yet. It hasn't made my finger green like most cheap rings and it hasn't even tarnished. It must not have been cheap. The diamonds in the brim of the infinity symbol are still sparkly and the gold of the heart inside the infinity ring is still shiny. It's such a pretty promise ring. Startling me out of my ring-filled thoughts, something smacks down on the counter beside me and I turn my head quickly to look. And when I see who it is, I put my head back down and ring the bell three more times so the lab tech will come quickly instead of making me sit here and wait with this person. _Of all people…_

"Alex buy that for you?" Her voice is so smooth and rich, like velvet. It matches her perfect everything. Perfect voice, perfect body, perfect face, perfect everything. Everything just matches. I just nod my head, turning away from her and putting my ring hand into my pocket. "It's pretty." She sounds impressed and I feel the air shift beside me as she switches her weight and stands closer to me. Alex said to just ignore her, so that's what I'm gonna do. "He always likes to do the jewelry thing big. He spent $750 on my engagement ring." She sounds braggy. "I mean, he proposed to me and it was all special but he popped the question with some cheap cereal box ring because I told him that I found that romantic. But he wouldn't let me just walk around with a plastic ring on my finger, so he bought me a real pretty one." She taps her fingers. Either Aubree's unhappy or I'm just really feeling sick to my stomach. "What's yours? Silver infinity with a gold heart? Funny…I think I saw one just like that at Walmart for $19.99."

I don't care how much it cost. I like it and it's pretty and it's still something that he didn't have to do. He didn't even have to spend twenty bucks on a ring for me if he didn't want to. I appreciate it still. I swallow a lump in my throat and pick my head up to look at her. "…I get it, okay?" My voice comes out in something raspy. I sound so pitiful. "I get it. He was yours before he was mine…you know him…better, or whatever." I have to cry. I need to cry so bad but I won't give her the satisfaction. "I don't want to fight with you…"

"I know you don't want to fight." She leans against the desk right along with me. "Because you have no fight. I have everything over you. I have four years with him, you have a couple months. I have a $750 engagement ring, you have a $20 promise ring. I have his heart, you have his brain. You have no fight. You have what…his child? Please, that's not much." What's mindboggling to me is how she's being so nasty with me but she still sounds so nice. Her tone isn't smart or snotty, it's just calm. "You have no fight, honey. And when it comes to Alex's heart, I'll always win. So just give up…"

"You left him." She's really starting to get to me. I feel some type of anger rising. But it's not anger directed at anyone but myself. Or maybe I'm just angry at the situation. "If you wanted him so bad, why'd you leave? If you wanted him so bad, why'd you give him to me? I get it. You don't have to be a bitch about it. You can be a woman and just let him choose. Let him choose and whoever he chooses, whatever. You don't have to hunt me down in hallways just to make yourself feel important. Be a woman about it."

"You think you're being a woman?" She shakes her head. "A real woman isn't as desperate as you've shown yourself to be. A real woman wouldn't throw herself on an engaged man in the first place. Matter of fact, a real woman would respect herself more than to let someone convince her that they're in love with her, only because they lost their true love. Alex is playing you. You think that once your little baby is born you guys will be a family? He'll always have feelings for me. I'll always be in his heart. He keeps you around because Alex can't go without someone to lay over. He can't go longer than a week without sex and if you knew the REAL Alex, you'd know that. He needed you around for when I was gone. He just slipped up and got you pregnant. He never meant to get stuck with you. You think he really wanted to make a mistake like having a baby with someone he doesn't love? You're a mistake, little girl. You're a mistake, the baby is a mistake, your whole relationship with him is a mistake. Alex is just too nice to kick you to curb while you're pregnant. But sweetheart, don't be delusional. He doesn't want a family with you…he's not gonna walk out on his child though."

I bite my bottom lip hard and hold back tears. No…she's not being truthful. She's lying. Alex loves me… I can't even find anything else to say back to her. I push myself off the desk and walk down the hall before I start crying in front of her. I'll get the labs for Dr. Grey later, I just can't be there right now. Alex loves me. He loves me and he loves Aubree and he wouldn't just stay with me for the sake of Aubree. I know Alex. Maybe not as well as she does, but I do know him. I'll do what Alex said… I'll let it roll off my back.

But I mean what I said to Alex. I'm not willing to fight over him. I'm not gonna go around and stoop to her level by taunting her with the things that Alex gave me and not her. I'm not gonna go out of my way to walk by her in the cafeteria and I'm not gonna deliberately make her feel like shit. If this is what she constitutes as "fighting" for Alex's heart, she can have it. It's not worth me losing my dignity. It's not gonna come to blows between me and her because one, I'm pregnant. And two, even when I do have Aubree, I'm gonna be a mother and mothers don't throw down with bitches in the street over men. I'm not fighting over Alex. Because the way I see it…if Alex lets me and her fight over him, then he never really wanted me and she can have him. If Alex loves me the way he says he loves me, he wouldn't let it come down to a fight between me and her. So I'm not willing to fight. She can have him for all the fighting in the world. I wipe tears off my cheeks and hold onto the railing as I walk down the steps to get off the same floor as her. I'll let it roll off my back.

But it's so hard. Like… what if the things she said is true? What she says makes sense…

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><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"Hey babe, I'm gonna…" I start to tell her that I'm gonna run down to the store because we're out of both toilet paper and toothpaste, plus I need some aftershave but she seems so peaceful. And the sound that's coming out of the incomplete nursery is something that's actually so beautiful that I don't want to interrupt. She did tell me that she likes to listen to music while she's doing chores because that's usually how she gets them done, but I didn't think she was serious. Even more so than that, I didn't think she'd sing while she's listening to music. And more so than THAT, I didn't think she'd sound like this. So before she sees me and stops doing what she's doing, I step back away from the door and back into the shadows of the hallway. I peer around the doorframe to watch her at least while she still has her back turned towards me.

I don't know what's wrong with her, but she's been really quiet with me tonight. She wasn't at all unenthusiastic when we went shopping after work or anything like that, because she actively participated in buying things for Aubree. We didn't buy a crib tonight because they didn't have the one I wanted, but we bought lots of clothes and bottles. And we did buy a car seat and a stroller. The car seat is light pink with brown trim and little Winnie the Pooh characters all over it. It's really cute and Jo picked it out herself. I get to pick out the next one. Aubree's gonna need two car seats and two strollers, one for my car and one for Jo's car. Anyway, Jo's been acting really sullen today. She's just really quiet and stuff. But she wasn't like that when I was talking to her in the hallway earlier. I don't know, maybe she's just hormonal. I don't want to ask her and make her upset though. I just wonder why she's been so…sad tonight. I sigh and just look inside the nursery at her.

She's sitting on the floor, folding all the new clothes we bought today in various shades of pinks and purples. Her hair is resting in loose curls around her back and her shoulders and the speaker system she's listening to is pretty loud but I can still hear her voice singing over it, along to the song that's playing. "And darling I will be loving you 'til we're 70...and baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23. And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious waaays…" I get chills all over my body as she holds that note. _How come she never told me that she could sing? _I can just picture her sitting in a rocking chair singing to Aubree. Her singing voice is beautiful and I'm not just saying that because I love her. I lean against the door and close my eyes while I listen, getting the mental picture of her singing our daughter to sleep. "Well me… I fall in love with you every single day…and I just wanna tell you I aaaamm…" She keeps giving me chills. I can't believe Jo can sing like this.

I open my eyes back up and look inside the room again. She's rolling socks up and putting them into a plastic bin. I see her slightly swaying back and forth to the tune of the song. The song is mellow and very soft, just the kind of song Aubree could fall asleep to. I'm so amazed right now. "So honey noooow." She tosses a pair of socks into the bin and grabs another pair to roll. "Take me into your loving aaarms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars...place your head on my beating heart. I'm thinking out loud…that maybe, we found love right where we are." I softly walk into the room with her and sit down beside her. She looks over at me then back down at the pair of socks she's folding. Just like I thought she would, she stops singing but she takes it down to a hum that's still beautiful.

"…How come you didn't tell me you could sing?" I pick up a pair of socks and start helping her fold the pile of them that she's not even halfway through. She shrugs her shoulders and keeps on folding. "You know you can sing, don't you?" She just shrugs again. "You have a pretty voice." I lean over and kiss her cheek. "Aubree's a lucky lady…to have a voice like yours to sing her to sleep at night." She cracks a half-smile and nods. "…You feeling okay tonight, babe?" She nods. "…Well I have to run to the store for a couple things. You want anything?" She shakes her head, still humming to the music. "You sure?" She nods her head. "You sure nothing's wrong with you? …Something happen at work to upset you today?" She shakes her head. "You still love me?" She nods her head. "You just tired?" She nods again. "Okay… I'll be right back and then we can go to sleep for the night." I kiss her cheek again and stand back up. She turns her head and watches me leave the room. So maybe she's not sad…maybe she's just tired.

I don't know, but she seems pretty sad to me.

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><p><strong><span>AN: **So I made a tumblr account today because I realized that it's almost time for me to make Aubree be here :) And I promised you guys that I'd give you guys a picture of what I have in mind when I'm describing Aubree so if you're interested, you can go follow me on tumblr (if you have an account) and I'll post pictures of Aubree there. My tumblr will also serve as my personal tumblr, so i'll be posting things about my life as well as my fanfics and stuff, just a little warning. Just in case you're weird like me and want to know more about the people behind stories. (idk, i get weird sometimes when i read a good story...i want to know more about the person that writes them lol) sooo yeah. I'll follow you guys back on tumblr :)

my tumblr is called flawlesspeasant. there's a link to it in my bio on here since you can't post links in chapters.


	49. I'll Risk It

**I have not updated again, guys. This is still chapter 49. I just reuploaded it because for some reason, my Fanfiction account is malfunctioning and chapter 49 isn't showing up. Some people have already read it and other people can't even view it. So I changed the name and reuploaded the chapter. Hope everyone can see it now, and there still might be a chapter 50 in the future for today. Enjoy! **

**A/N:** **_Happy New Year, guys! I hope you guys have a safe and prosperous year in 2015._**

I might be updating twice today because I might not be able to update tomorrow. My birthday's tomorrow (on the second of january, i mean) and I might be a little bit busy and I hate to leave you guys on a cliffhanger for two days so I'll try to update again today.

So, the beginning of major drama in this chapter guys! :O Enjoy!

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><p>"I guess she had to get labs too. But the whole situation was just…awkward." I unhinge my locker and fling the door open in search of my scrub pants. I'm here a whole forty five minutes earlier than my shift starts, which I'm oddly okay with. I mean, I'd rather be early for work than late for it. I slept over Alex's house last night and his shift started at 7:30 as opposed to mine, which doesn't start until eight. I'll probably just go eat some breakfast in the cafeteria while I wait to punch in. "She basically just made fun of me. She called me stupid and stuff…called Aubree an accident." I yank my pants out of my locker and take off the jeans I stuffed myself into this morning. "And then she told me she saw my ring at Walmart for twenty bucks. I just don't understand how someone can be so…bitchy." I fold my jeans up and put them into my locker. I grab my thermal from my locker as well. "Steph, I really just didn't even know what to say to her. What do you say to someone so bitter?"<p>

"You didn't say anything to her at all?" Steph kneels down and ties her shoe. Her shift starts at 7:30—in fifteen minutes. "You just let her talk down to you? You let her talk about your unborn child?"

"What was I supposed to say?" I step into my scrub pants and tie them around my waist. Alex bought me new scrub pants but I haven't even had to use them yet. I'm not gaining anything. I don't know if I should be praising god or if I should be worried. I mean Aubree's okay so I guess I don't have anything to worry about, but I swear low weight gain during pregnancy is a very bad thing. Then again, I'm not an obstetrician and I don't really know what I'm talking about. "'Fuck you bitch, I got your man and I'm having his baby'? Get real. I wasn't gonna just say that to her at my job because if she would've swung on me, it would've been all bad." I take off my jacket and leave the tank top I threw on this morning on. The more layers I wear, the thinner I look. Plus when I wear a bunch of layers, I feel like Aubree's more protected. I don't know, maybe that's just a mom thing. "I just asked her why she left him. Because I want to know anyway. My thing is this… if she wanted him so bad, she would've never left. I didn't say anything else to her though. I don't want to pick a fight."

"You can't just let her talk down to you though, Jo." Steph yanks her wildly curly hair up in a ponytail and adjusts her glasses. "If you don't stick up for yourself, you're never gonna get anywhere. She's just gonna think it's okay to keep talking bad to you when it's really not. I'm not telling you to go around fighting people because obviously that's not cool but you can't let her talk about you and your baby and just get away with it. There's a limit Jo. Stick up for yourself."

"I'm not fighting with her, Steph." I adjust my thermal over my belly and pull on my scrub top. "I told Alex that I'm not fighting over him and that's what I meant. I'm not fighting with her over him. I just feel like…" I reach in the back of my locker and grab the bottle of prenatal vitamins I left in there. They're the new ones that Dr. Maxwell prescribed for me. I skipped my pill last night because I left them here in my locker so I have to take two this morning. "I feel like if I have to fight over him then he's not really mine. And I want him to be completely mine. I want Alex to be mine…all to myself…nobody else in the picture, no other strings attached. I want Alex to be all mine. And I'm sorry but I feel like if me and her have to fight over him then he's not really mine. It shouldn't come down to a fight. He shouldn't even allow there to be a fight. He should be with me if he really wants to be with me and that's the end. No fighting with his ex." I twist the cap off the bottle. "Besides… some of the things she says are true so I can't really get mad at her for speaking the truth."

"Do you love Alex, Jo?" She still has seven minutes before she has to clock in, so she sits down on the benches and continues talking to me. "Like seriously. You don't have to lie to me. It's me. You don't have to lie because you feel like you should love him since you're having his baby. You don't have to act around me. You can tell me the truth." She puts her hand up to me so I can give her the pill bottle because I'm having a little bit of trouble getting the cap off. "Do you love him?"

"I love him so much that it hurts." I sit down across from her and sigh. "…And that scares me, y'know?" Pregnancy hormones are making my eyes sting with tears. "And he doubts me for it because I don't really…tell him that I love him. I don't like to say it though. Because I kind of feel like… I feel like if I don't say it, it's not real. But I do love him. I love him so much that it makes me sick. Physically sick. I love him so much that I hate him. I hate him for making me love him as much as I do but I do. I really, really, really fell hard for this man and I hate myself for it but it is what it is. I'm in love with Alex…" I look up at her and I can tell by the look on her face that she's only halfway following the things that I'm saying. I clear my throat and speak up. "…Love is weakness, Steph. You love someone and then they have leverage to hurt you. They have the opportunity to hurt you when you love them. And I love Alex and now…he has the ability to break me. And I hate it. Love is weakness."

"Then Jo, if you love him…then why won't you fight for him? Fight for him then. You don't just let the things that you love go. If you really love someone then you've gotta fight for them." She puts her hand on my kneecap. "Can I be honest with you?" She asks and I nod my head. "You are… SO FAR…out of Alex's league. You're way too good for him. I'm still not over the way he used to make you cry. He used to make your life miserable…leaving you in on-call rooms by yourself, kicking you out of his house after he just slept with you…calling you names. Dude's a dog. Alex is a dog and he did you so dirty. But I can see that you love the man. And I say…if you love him, fight for him."

I shake my head at her. "Don't trash talk him like that." Honestly, I do thank Steph for always being on my side. She's always on my side. She won't let go the fact that Alex treated me horribly in the beginning and I love that about her. I love that she's really, truly, genuinely my best friend. But she can't trash talk my baby like that. I'll have to punch her in her mouth and I really don't want to do that. "Steph, Alex isnt bad. He's a good guy. Really, he is. And I'm sad that you can't see him the way I do and I'm pissed that he refuses to see you the way I see you. I'm irritated with the fact that the two of you…the most important people in my life at the moment…can't get along. That irritates me but whatever. But I don't let Alex shit talk you and I'm not gonna let you shit talk him either. He's a good man. He may not have treated me the best at first and I get that. He was dickhead towards me at first but within reason. He was hurting at the time. He's been nothing but nice to me since then, though. Alex isn't as big an ass as you think he is. So… I know I shit talk him an awful lot, but don't shit talk him to me. He's not bad." She nods her head and pats my knee, a silent "sorry". I sigh again. "And I don't want to fight with her. Because…some part of me doesn't think I'd win. I'm not sure I'd win…"

"Why don't you think you'd win? He loves you and you love him. She's the one that left. You were there for him when she wasn't, Jo. She was supposed to be his fiancée and she LEFT him. You were there. You're the best thing for him. You and little baby Aubree are the best thing for him. Why wouldn't you win?"

"Because I guess…" I swallow a lump in my throat. "I guess I kind of believe some of the things she says. I guess I believe her when she says that Alex doesn't move on as quickly as he did. She has known him far longer than I have and that goes a long way. So what if some of the things she's saying are true? Like…he wouldn't stay with her for four years if he wasn't in love with her. That four years had to have meant something to him. And he just moves on after four years? She has to have a point with that. And she gets to be angry about that. That's why I won't fight her. I'm not sure if I'd win and she's not wrong. She's not wrong for being angry. Steph, she came back after a MONTH to find her ex-FIANCE with another woman and a baby on the way. She gets to be mad about that." I really don't blame her. I know I'd be awfully confused and very hurt if I came back to the man I loved and supposedly loved me back, only to find that he's in a new relationship and expecting a baby. "I'll fight with her when Alex shows me that I'd be fighting a battle I was SURE to win. Right now…I'm not sure."

"I totally get what you're saying." She mutters. "Does that piss you off, though? The fact that she's even back?" I nod my head fast. "You're a much better person than I am though, I'll tell you that. You're such a good person Jo. It takes a big, mature person to stand at your viewpoint. For you to sit here and say that you don't blame her? For you to tell me that you understand her pain? You're such a mature person for that." She reaches her hand out and touches my hair. "You're such a good person. And Alex is lucky to have gotten someone like you as a baby mama."

"Thank you." I smirk and grab the bottle of pills that she took the cap off of for me. I don't like compliments. I just don't ever feel like I deserve to be complimented. I don't think I'm that pretty, I don't think I'm a good person and I just don't deserve compliments. I never know what to say to people when they compliment me. "You know what _does _piss me off though? The fact that I love him more than he loves me. That pisses me off." I shrug my shoulders. "He has her in his heart so basically, he's sharing his heart between the two of us. But for me, there's nobody else but him. He's not sharing my heart with anybody but Aubree right now. And Aubree doesn't really count because he'll ALWAYS lose when it comes to her. Aubree's above everyone so that doesn't count. But you see what I'm saying? I love him and only him and he's the only man in my heart. But I'm not the only girl in his heart. And I love him so much more than he loves me. Alex will NEVER love me more than I love him. It's not possible. That pisses me off." I turn the bottle of pills over in my hand and dump some out. _Holy… _"I'm not taking these things."

"You have to." She picks up a pill from my hand and looks at it. "For Aubree."

"I can't swallow this!" I hold it up to my face and just shake my head. It's literally the size of an eyeball. This thing is huge. How the hell am I supposed to swallow this? "Hell no I'm not taking this." I stick the pill back into the bottle and close it up. Steph snatches the bottle off me and takes the cap back off. "I'm not swallowing that big ass horse pill. Screw that. I'm not taking that pill." And I mean that. I'm not swallowing that thing just so it can get caught in my throat. I'm actually hungry and I'd like to…I don't know…EAT today. "Get that thing the fuck out of my face, Stephanie."

"Jo, just take it. It's a pill and it's for Aubree. Swallow it." She hands me one single pill but I don't take it. "Take your prenatal vitamin or I'll tell Alex. I'll page him right now." She picks up her pager and I snatch the damn vitamin out of her hand. "It's just a pill. Swallow it."

"…It's huge though." I just stare at it.

"Swallow it."

"Can't you just—"

"No Jo…I'm not sticking it up your ass." She's firm with me and said that with a straight face which makes me bust out in laughter. She's so serious about it and what's even weirder is that she knew that was exactly what I was gonna ask. I really was gonna ask her if she'd put it up my butt for me. I mean because sometimes, people stick pills up their asses and it works that way. I can't swallow this thing and somehow, I think that taking it up my ass would be easier. "Swallow the pill. Think about little Aubree floating around in there saying 'please mommy'. Take your pill." I shake my head. "You're already not gaining weight for her, now you're gonna make her come out with a conehead and four toes all because you won't take your pill?"

I roll my eyes at her and stand up. Dr. Maxwell wasn't kidding. These new pills really are twice the old ones. I walk over to the sink and run some water in my hand. I pop the pill in my mouth, slurp some water and down the horse pill. It hurts going down but it's all for my pumpkin. I take a breath after I swallow it and make a face. That really did hurt my throat. "…You happy in there?" I poke a finger against my abdomen. "You just made my throat hurt. You're not even here yet and you're already giving me headaches. You're gonna be one big headache, I can see it now. You're gonna be like your asshole of a father and you're gonna make my head hurt." I sit back down on the benches and check the time for Steph. She has like two more minutes before she has to clock in. I poke my stomach again and poke my lip out. I feel something move across my stomach all the way down to my crotch. I think I have to either use the bathroom or pass gas. "…Never get pregnant, Steph." I stand up and walk to the door because she's about to have to clock in. I'll just go grab something to eat while she clocks in and starts her day. "You don't do anything but pee and fart a lot when you're pregnant. And never get pregnant when you're with a boy that you still want to impress. Cause I hold my farts in around Alex and they hurt like a bitch."

"You're better than me. Alex would just have to learn to love my farts." She swings the door open to the locker room. "I'm serious about that. I wouldn't hold anything in. He'd just learn to love my farts."

"…I don't fart around anyone, much less Alex." I walk next to her as she goes to the time clock to punch in. I feel that weird thing move back from my crotch up to my stomach. I think I have gas. "Whose service are you on today?" I stand by the time clock with her, my hand on my stomach because it's kind of feeling weird. "I think I'm back on General today."

"Can't be on General." She slides her name badge and clips it back to her top. "I'm on General." She takes one look at me. "You okay there?" I nod my head. "Gas?" I nod again. "…Maybe Aubree's moving. Maybe it's not gas…"

"She never moves." I write that off.

"Shake her." She starts walking off in the opposite direction from me so she can get her day started on General while I go to the cafeteria and eat. "Put your hand on your belly and shake her. If your stomach gets that feeling in it, then you know for sure she's moving and it's not gas." She shrugs. "I'll talk to you later."

"See ya." I put my hands in my pockets and start walking towards the cafeteria. I've had enough gas during my pregnancy to know what it feels like and what I'm feeling really feels like gas. Aubree's not moving. She never moves. She just chills in there, most of the time with her legs crossed. She had her legs crossed during the gender reveal ultrasound and I haven't felt her move since so I assume her legs are still crossed. Aubby doesn't move much, she just…chills. I think she's gonna be a laidback baby.

That's a good thing for me. If she's gonna be laidback, I mean. I really think she's gonna be chill. She doesn't move much and she isn't really mean to me. I mean sometimes she makes me sick and sometimes she makes my back hurt but she's a sweet baby for the most part. She's gonna be very relaxed. I'm nervous about meeting her but for the most part, I'm kind of excited. I've been thinking about what she'd look like. I think she's gonna be pretty. I think she's gonna have light hair like Alex…or at least I hope she does. My hair is boring. She's gonna be pretty no matter what, though. You know… I wonder… I slide my hand flat against my stomach while I'm walking and give it one hard shake. Just one hard one. Nothing. See, I knew it was gas.

I sigh and keep walking to the cafeteria. I think they have bacon today. It's Wednesday and they usually have bacon on Wednesdays. I reach back and make sure my ponytail is straight back and as soon as I step foot in the cafeteria, I put my hand against my stomach. "Oh crap." I hold my stomach tight. I feel something flutter and move, like from my middle over towards my side. _Aw, she's moving. _I look down at my belly with my hand over it and smile. "I won't shake you no more, I'm sorry." Just to test it out though, I push on my side where I felt the movement to. When I push on my side, I feel the flutter move back towards my middle. _She's definitely moving. _"Okay I'm done now. I'm sorry honey."

I can't wait to tell Alex that she MOVED.

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><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"How'd you sleep last night, Karev?" While we're walking down the hallway together, that's the first thing Robbins has said to me all morning. She hands me a cup of coffee and smiles, all cheerful and whatnot. I don't understand how anyone can deal with Arizona on a personal level sometimes. She's entirely too bright and sunshine-y for me. "Are you on your A-game?" She asks me, knowing damn well I can't answer right now because I'm sipping the coffee she handed me. I know what she's doing. She's buttering me up. She must have something in the NICU that she doesn't want to do and she's just trying to butter me up to do it. Nevermind the fact that she is my superior and if she told me to do something, I wouldn't have a choice but to do it. Nope, she's still trying to butter me up for some reason. "I have something for you."

I belch loudly and toss the empty coffee cup into the trashcan we just passed while we were walking. "What do you have for me? Bowel obstruction? Pyloric Stenosis?" I sink my hands into my pockets and reluctantly walk with her. She's always trying to get me to wait for a child to poop or take care of the babies that have a throwing up problem. Peds has been getting rough on me these days though and she knows that. I love my job, don't get me wrong. But it does get a little hard for me to sit here and watch other people's babies not doing so well when I'm about to have my own. I've seen firsthand all the things that can go wrong with babies and I can't help but worry about Aubree. "You don't have to butter me up, you know."

"I'm not buttering you up." She smiles at me and stands in front of the door to the nursery. I don't work in the nursery. I specialize in babies that are sick, not babies that are okay. Whatever she has planned is probably going to be painful. "I know you've been down in the dumps lately…looking at sick babies all day when you're about to have your own." She nudges my shoulder. "I want to make sure you don't forget what Peds is all about. You're just starting to get good at this and I don't want you to lose your interest, so here." She opens up the nursery door and steps aside. "All these babies in here need checkups. It's a slow day in the NICU and a slow day on the floor so me and you are gonna do some checkups on _healthy _babies. And later on today, we're gonna brush up on your APGAR skills…just in case you're allowed to do your own baby's APGAR test after it's born."

"…Never thought I'd actually thank you someday." I mutter and push past her to get into the nursery. So…many…babies. "Parents are actually allowed to do their own baby's APGAR exams after birth?" I grab the chart hanging off one of the bassinets to get started. Robbins is actually very thoughtful at times. She knows that the job has been getting rough on me now that Jo's pregnant and I'm stuck thinking about all the things that could go wrong with mine. It was awful nice of her to stick me in the nursery with the healthy ones for a day. "I thought the OB nurse assigned to the mom was the one to do the APGAR test. You think they'd let me do Aubree's after she's born?"

"I could pull some strings and see if they'd let you." She stands next to me, holding her stethoscope on a very cute, dark-skinned little guy. He's got the cutest, curliest, kinky hair and he's sucking on a pacifier. He's really cute. "You remember what APGAR stands for? Can't let you go give an APGAR test this afternoon sometime if you don't know what it stands for. Especially on the patient I have in mind, 'cause my patient will know if you screw it up. What's APGAR stand for?"

"Appearance…Pulse…Grimace." I put my hand against the little guy's stomach and rub it. He's very alert and bright-eyed. "Activity and Respiration." If I could, I'd hold every baby in this room. They're all so cute but I bet none of them are as beautiful as Aubree's gonna be. I'll bet serious money on that. "Whose baby am I gonna perform the test on? You said they'd know…"

"Before I tell you, tell me more about the APGAR exam. What's the highest score a baby can get?"

"…A ten, but that's rarely achieved." I stick my finger inside the little guy's pacifier and grin at the feeling of him nibbling on my finger. The pacifiers that the hospital gives to newborns are the big circular green ones with the hole in the middle. Sometimes in the NICU, we're supposed to put our fingers in that little opening to feel how strong the baby's suction has gotten. I like the feeling of tiny gums nibbling on my finger. Aubree's gonna have really strong suction, I can feel it. I'll sit in a chair with my finger in her pacifier all the time…it'll be fun. "The waiting is killing me, you know?" I stare down at the baby in the bassinet and touch his hair. I love his hair. I hope Aubree has a lot of hair. I hope she looks like Jo. "I can't wait to have this…"

"The waiting will kill anybody." She just stands back, observing me with the baby. "You're gonna be good at this Alex. Wilson's a lucky girl… your baby's lucky too." She folds her arms across her chest and keeps watching me. "Wilson's what…a few months? Do you guys know what you're having?"

"She's sixteen weeks…and I thought I told you we were having a little girl." I can't take my eyes off the baby in the bassinet. I don't know what it is, but something about babies just enchants me. It's so strange to see little babies that are so innocent. They haven't done anything yet and they're so fresh and new. Everything about them is just… indescribable. I can't wait to hold my Aubree.

"You didn't tell me you were having a girl." She punches me in my arm, soft but hard enough for me to get her point. "What's her name? Have you guys picked one yet?"

"Aubree." Just saying her name is…wow. I can't even explain the feeling I've got in my stomach. Saying her name is crazy. There's gonna be someone with this name and she's gonna belong to me. And she's gonna be mine and I'm gonna be HER dad. That's so crazy to think about. "Aubree Jo Karev. She's due on the first of May and I can't wait that long."

"…Little Harper Avery." She says with a tinge of happiness in her voice. "That's the APGAR test you'll be performing."

"…Apes had her baby?" I'm still not looking away from the baby in invested in, but I am shocked. Jackson didn't even tell me…

"She didn't have him yet but she was induced at 6:30 this morning. She's having the beginning signs of preeclampsia and the OB called me in to ask me if we had room in the NICU just in case. He'd only be three weeks early so nothing major could be wrong but you know…just in case, we take them up to the NICU anyway for observation. I'm actually waiting for the OB to page me so we can get down there when she's close to full delivery. I talked to both Jackson and April and they're both okay with you being the one to score their baby. Jackson was mad at me when I told him not to text you. I wanted this to be a surprise for you."

"…Can't wait until that's me." I shake my head, in complete awe that one of my best friends is about to have his first kid. I'm about to have a kid too. This is all so crazy to me. "Too bad Avery's in Plastics and not Peds, otherwise tell him to be the one to give my Aubree her APGAR test….it's a fair trade off."

"Your Aubree?" Robbins just looks at me like she's a proud mother or something. "I never thought that you'd be having a baby. You're gonna be great Alex. I can't wait to see how great you're gonna be." She sighs, dreamily. "You and Wilson are together, aren't you?"

"Yeah…why wouldn't we be?" I finally stop looking at the baby and look at her. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Nothing I just heard that you guys might be breaking up. I didn't think it was true but…you know the rumor mill." She brushes it off like it's nothing but it's something. It's something to me.

"Who told you that?" She shakes her head. "Arizona. Who told you that?"

"Who do you think?" She raises her eyebrow at me just as her pager rings and she picks it up to check it.

"…Izzie." I mutter. "Of course she did. She just doesn't know how to let me be happy." I sigh. I have to go talk to her. Who knows if the rumor got to Jo yet? The last thing I need is for Jo to get wind of the rumor that I'm gonna break up with her. She'll flip her shit and I'll lose her and Aubree because I know Jo and I know that she'll probably break up with me before I can break up with her and she won't even let me explain. This whole Izzie situation has been taking its own toll on Jo and I'm scared that she might decide she can't handle it before I get the chance to get Izzie to leave again. I'm working on getting her to leave. I tell her almost every day that she needs to leave. I haven't told Jo because I don't want to scare her, but Iz has really been trying to get me back. She's just been acting like she never left. She's been coming to visit me because she still knows my schedules and she knows when I have a free moment. I haven't told Jo though, because it's not a big deal. I don't want Iz back. I have to go tell Iz to shut up before these rumors get back to Jo. "I'll be back…" I mumble and put the baby's chart back on his bassinet.

"Alex wait…" Arizona starts and just as she talks, I get my own page. The page is probably telling us that April and Jackson's baby is close to being here which is fine. I just have to run up to Derm, tell Iz to shut her mouth and I'll be right back down to score their baby on the APGAR scale. It'll be quick. "Check your pager… I just got a page that says we're on lockdown."

"What's that even mean?" My tone comes out in annoyance but I'm not annoyed at her, I'm annoyed at the fact that Iz won't shut her damn mouth. I snatch my pager off my pocket where I clipped it and look at it. I got the same page. Says we're on lockdown. "What the hell is lockdown?"

"It means nobody in, nobody out. Stay where we are." She sighs and leans against a bassinet.

"It's just a drill. I'll be back." I shove my pager back into my pocket and open the door to the nursery. I have to shut Iz up NOW because the second Jo hears this rumor, it's my ass.

"Alex, what if it'snot a drill?!" Arizona screams after me.

"I don't care!" I shut the nursery door behind me and storm up the hallway so I can go to Dermatology to shut my annoying ex up. It's just a drill. We do these things like once every few months just to make sure we know what to do in these situations. We've never had a lockdown drill before but that's probably the reason why we're having one. I don't care about a stupid fucking drill though. I need to shut Izzie up.

So drill or not, I'm going up to Derm.


	50. What Am I Doing Here?

**A/N:** I've noticed that I've been getting a lot of questions in guest reviews, which is good because I love it when you guys ask me questions. I do have one request though, can you guys ask me the questions on tumblr? They can still be anonymous or whatever, but please ask me questions on tumblr from now on. That way I can address your question if you're a guest reviewer and I can't PM you. If you ask the questions on tumblr, it'll give me a better way to be able to answer questions. So please and thanks? My tumblr is flawlesspeasant . tumblr . com.

AND ENJOY THE UPDATE. :)

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><p>I take one of my hands out of my pocket and yank the door to Dermatology open. Everyone is taking this whole lockdown drill seriously. Nobody was in the hallways and the elevators were shut off. Okay so I get that I'm probably not supposed to be walking around right now but I just don't care. First of all, there's nobody around out here to police me and make sure I'm not walking around because everyone that is my authority figure is too busy following the rules. Second of all, the reason I'm up here in Derm is way more important to me than following some stupid drill. I have the ability to lose my whole family by this rumor. I have to stop it. I storm into the lobby of the Derm office and stand at the main desk. Rebecca, Izzie's favorite coworker, stops typing on the computer and looks up at me. She looks at me with squinty eyes and a cold face. It's clear to me that Izzie told them that I'm with an intern now and it's also clear whose side Rebecca is on. She slides her swivel chair over towards the door that leads to the back. "…Izzie, you have a visitor." She calls back to her, still looking at me like I was supposed to be engaged to HER and not Iz. "Didn't you get your page? You're not even supposed to be here."<p>

I wave my hand at her, letting her know that I'm not in the mood and I really don't care about anything she has to say to me. It's none of her business what goes on between me and Izzie and even though I know that Iz is the one that told her everything, I still don't think it's her business. Besides, I doubt that Iz told them that she was the one that left. It's not like I got with Jo just to spite her, despite what she thinks. The back door opens up and Izzie slides through it. Her pastel orange scrubs really set off her eyes and her hair. She does look really nice in orange. She happily walks over to me with a bounce and pep in her step. I don't know why she's happy. I'm not up here to talk nicely to her. "You shouldn't even be here, babe. What do you need?"

"I'm not your babe." I mumble to her. I take a breath to calm myself down long enough to ask her if we can talk outside. I don't need to talk to her in front of all these people and all her coworkers because I don't plan on being nice. I'm not gonna be nice to her and it seems like her coworkers already hate me. They'd hate me even more if they're here to witness how nasty I'm about to be with her. "Lemme talk to you out in the hallway real quick, Iz." I move my finger in a "come here" motion and take a few steps towards the door.

"We're on lockdown, Alex. That means we have to stay where we—"

"Hallway, Izzie. NOW." I tried to be civil with her but now she's pissed me off. I twist the knob to the door and open it up a little. She gets the memo that I'm very serious and very irritated with her. She opens up the gate that seals off the lobby from the back and slips out to follow me. I'm trying really hard to still care about her, you know? I'm trying my hardest to remain calm and be nice to her and understand that she's hurt right now because it's not easy to see me with another woman but she's making it so increasingly hard. She's making it SO hard to feel for her and she's starting to make me hate her. She comes out into the hallway with me and shuts the door behind the both of us. She crosses her arms and looks at me, clearly just waiting for what I have to say. "What the hell is your problem?" She opens her mouth to talk but I'm not letting her get a word in yet. I'm doing all the talking. "I was really trying to be nice to you about all of this, Iz. It's a bad situation and I was really trying to be understanding towards you but then you go and pull this crap? It doesn't matter how many rumors you start, I'm still not gonna leave Jo! You're trying so hard to get her to fight but she doesn't want to fight! She doesn't want to fight with you Iz and I love that about her. Just let it go. Let it go and leave me alone. Leave ME alone, Leave JO alone…just give up. There is NO hope of me and you being together. Just give it all up, Iz…give it all up. You're not gonna win."

"WHAT ABOUT ME?!" She screams at me with tears welling up in her eyes. If I wasn't so mad at her, her tears would be bothering me. But I'm too mad to even care that she's gonna cry. "What about me, Alex?! I love you too! I love you more than she does and you're just gonna walk away from me? I made a MISTAKE by leaving and I'm SORRY. I'm so sorry but I will make this up to you. I will make it up to you FOREVER, Alex. Forever. I love you. She doesn't love you the way I love you, Alex…can't you see that? Can't you see that I love you so much harder than she does? I love you…" She's crying her eyes out. "Alex, me and you are meant to be together. We're meant to be…"

"I used to think that, Iz." I put my hands in the pockets of my white coat and look away from her because I'm finding it increasingly hard to look her in her eye while she's crying as hard as she is. She's crying pretty hard….I sort of wonder if maybe she's been holding this in for a while. "I really used to think that you were it for me. I used to think…" I sigh and take one hand out of my pocket to run it through my hair. I can't deal with Iz crying to me. I'd be a damn liar if I said I didn't care about her. I care about her feelings and I don't want to see her sad. That's why it's so hard for me to see her crying. "I used to think that we were gonna…grow old together and all that."

"If you believed it once, you can believe it again." She wipes her eyes with her thumbs. "You're not over me, Alex. You're not over me. You can tell me all day long that I don't know you anymore but the more I sit here and talk to you, the more I see that you really haven't changed that much. You're not that much different Alex. I still know you and I still love you. I love you so much. If you would just let me talk to you, I could prove it to you. I made the biggest mistake of my life by leaving you. And she doesn't deserve you. She doesn't deserve you; I do. I deserve you. I'm willing to fight for you and she's not. She doesn't deserve you." She takes a step towards me and I don't even step away. My head is starting to hurt. "Alex, please." She wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes me. Unlike Jo, her head falls directly on my chest. Jo's head doesn't reach my chest because she's so much tinier than Iz. Jo's head only touches just below my chest when she's not standing on her tiptoes. "She doesn't have anything I can't give to you. There's nothing…she's given you that I can't. You want babies? I can give you lots of them…"

I don't think I've ever seen Iz this upset before. She's just really shaken up. Literally, her arms are shaking around my waist and her tears are starting to seep through my scrub top. _But Jo. I love her. And I can't leave her and I won't leave her. I love Jo so much. _I take both my hands out of my pockets and put them against her back. It's just a hug. Nothing more than a hug, nothing less than a hug. Just a hug. "Iz, you said yourself that this was a mistake. We were supposed to get married last week. Last week would've been our wedding…and you saw that we would've been making a mistake. If you thought it was a mistake then, it's a mistake now. Why'd you come back? If you really thought that we were making a mistake, why'd you come back? You didn't come back just to get me back, did you? There has to be another reason…" I really don't know what I want anymore. I'm sure I want Aubree and Jo at this point. I'm sure that they're what I want out of my life but Iz is putting all these things in my head. She's right… I have loved her for four years. I really don't know everything I need to know about Jo but I've fallen in love with her. On the other hand, I know everything about Iz and I chose to love her despite everything. I loved her and I loved her enough to make her my wife at one point. That kind of love doesn't just go away after a month, does it?

"I came back because I can't live without you." Since I put my hands against her back, she thinks it's okay to really hold me. And I guess it is okay. I guess I don't mind. Like she used to hug me when we were together, she puts her head against my shoulder and rubs my back. I used to love when she did this. I used to feel like nothing else in the world mattered when she held me like this. I just don't feel the same anymore. "I can't… go on without you, Alex. I tried but I can't. You were all I thought about, all I ever wanted. I thought I could live without you…I lived without George, you know? But without you… it was worse than living without George. I made a mistake by ever leaving. Just let me make it up to you…please. I know you still love me." She puts her lips against my neck, which doesn't really set right with me. I don't really want her to kiss me. "I know you do. And you're too good of a man to want to hurt that little girl but Alex… you can't hurt me trying not to hurt her. I was your fiancée. That has to count for something…"

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I'm not in love with you anymore though, Iz?" I keep my hand against her back just because she's still upset and I still want to comfort her. "I have love for you and I always will. I'll always want to see you happy…that'll never change. I want to see you happy and I don't want you to want after me when I don't love you the same way. I'm happy… don't you want that for me?"

"I don't believe that." She shakes her head and she says that with a straight face so I know she's serious. She lets go of me and takes a step back just so we can look in each other's eyes. "I don't believe that you're not in love with me…" She licks her lips and looks away from me. I know that when Iz does that, she's looking for a way to say what's on her mind. When she figures out how to say it, she looks up at me. "…If you're not in love with me, then you should tell her not to fight. You haven't told her not to fight for you, Alex. She came up with that all on her own. She's not willing to fight for you and you're okay with that. You don't want her to fight…" She looks away from me again. "I forgive you, you know." I wrinkle my brow. What could she possibly have to forgive me for? I haven't done anything. "I forgive you for cheating on me. You cheated on me…and you got her pregnant. I forgive you though. Can you forgive me?"

"…Jo doesn't have to fight for my heart though, Iz." I bite my lip and sigh. All I wanted to do was come up here and ask her to stop spreading rumors that might cause me to lose Jo and my daughter. That's all I wanted to do. But in coming up here, she just made me think… and I don't want to think. Life was better when I wasn't thinking. Life was better when everything was effortless between me and Jo. I didn't have to think about anything with Jo—everything was just on instinct. I never had to think about kissing Jo, it just came naturally. I didn't need to plan out when we were going to have sex, it just happened. I never planned out the "I love yous", they just came. Everything is effortless with Jo. I have to think with Izzie. And I don't know if I want to leave something effortless for something that I have to think about. "…Just stop spreading rumors, Iz." I put my hands back in my pockets and start walking down the hall so I can go back to Arizona. She's probably wondering where the hell I'm at.

"We're on lockdown, Alex! You're not going anywhere!" She screams down the hallway at me. How many times do I have to say that I don't care about lockdown? This is just a stupid drill and I don't even care about it if it wasn't. Nothing's gonna happen to me. "Alex, come on!" I just keep walking, completely ignoring her. I haven't been this confused since Jo first came into my life. I'm just confused. I just want a clear mind and I don't have one right now. How can I be sure that the feelings I have for Jo aren't just there because she's having my baby? How can I be sure that the feelings I have for Izzie are completely gone? I know one thing for sure; there's one person that I don't want to hurt in all this and that person is Jo. Jo's innocent in all of this. She doesn't deserve to get hurt with all this bullshit. Aside from the fact that she hit me, she's been nothing but good to me. She's a good woman and she doesn't deserve to get hurt. I really don't want to hurt her because unlike Izzie, I don't think I'd be okay never speaking to her again. I was getting along fine without speaking to Izzie for a month or so, but I can't even go longer than a day without speaking to Jo.

I keep walking up the hallway and it's quiet since there's nobody else in the halls, but I do hear footsteps behind me. I pick my head up and turn my head. "Iz, what are you doing?" I roll my eyes at the fact that she's following me. "Leave me alone. I'm going back to the nursery with Arizona, you need to go back to where you're supposed to be. Leave me alone already."

"I'm not gonna leave you alone, Alex." She finally catches up to me and slips her arm underneath of mine while I walk. "I love you…and just in case this lockdown isn't a drill, I'm not letting you go anywhere alone." She walks perfectly in sync with my steps. "I don't see your whore walking around during a lockdown with you, making sure you don't die."

"Jo's not a whore." I try to shrug my arm away from hers but she's got a pretty tight grip around me. Whatever. "Don't call her a whore."

"She's a slut." The tone of her voice and the way the word "slut" rolled off her tongue made it sound like she was calling Jo the dirtiest, nastiest word she could think off. "She fucked my husband, I get the permission to call her whatever I want to call her." I just roll my eyes and keep walking. If she were a guy, I would've been punched her in her mouth for calling Jo names but she's not a guy and I don't hit girls so I'll just take it. I know Jo's not dirty. "I want to feel bad for the poor thing though. I mean, it can't be easy being with…and being pregnant to someone that doesn't really love you. It honestly must suck to be with someone that's only with you to get over someone else. I'm trying to feel bad for her, but then again…it's kind of hard to feel bad for someone that is okay with being a hoe. I don't have respect for females that have no respect for themselves. She's trashy, babe. I know you usually go after the…trashy ones. I mean I came from a trailer park my damn self, but really…she takes it to a different level."

"…Are you done yet?" I mumble. I'm tired of listening to her badmouth Jo. "She has a billion positive qualities…you refuse to acknowledge how amazing she is because you hate her so much."

"She's pretty, I'll give her that." She tightens her arm around mine. "She's still a downgrade from me but you know…she's cute. If you're into girls that look like they should be in high school at the prom, she's cute. She kind of has a big forehead though. And her eyebrows are weird. And the contacts…what's with those? And that nose…god, I'd get plastic surgery if I had that nose. She had enough money to get lip injections, she should've taken care of that nose while she was at it. Oh, and someone should tell her that the contacts with the dark hair make her look like a demon. Tell her to let her natural hair color come through, her roots are disgusting. And she has a weird body. She's all legs. Why are her legs so long but her torso's so short?"

"Are you done tearing her to shreds yet?" Everything she said about Jo is not true. I think she's just jealous…she HAS to be. Because Jo's gorgeous. She could easily be a model. She's beautiful. Her eyes are all natural and her hair really is that dark. Jo's so beautiful…Iz HAS to be jealous. Quiet as kept, I think Jo's head and shoulders above Izzie. She's so much more beautiful. She definitely wasn't a downgrade. "You know I don't just go off looks, Iz. You know I look at more than looks when I'm with someone."

She laughs. "But a girl's gotta be pretty for you to even look at her. You and I both know that." She rolls her eyes and starts walking down the steps with me. "Gotta be honest with you, though… I didn't really think she was your type. You like blondes with big boobs. Girl's brunette and barely in a B-cup."

"Shut up Iz." She's really starting to get under my skin. I swear I wish she was as guy so I could hit her. Then again, if she was a guy, she'd probably find Jo hot. Jo's hot as hell and everyone knows that. Only a girl as superficial as Iz can be sometimes would tear her apart like that. "You really didn't have to come walk with me if all you're gonna do is shit talk my girlfriend. it's just a drill and you know damn well you could've just stayed where you were." When we get to the last step, we start walking up the hallway to go back to the nursery but she stops walking all of a sudden. I stop walking as well.

"Sir, the hospital's on lockdown… it's not meant for you to be walking around." Iz uses her sweet, friendly voice to call out to the man walking in front of us up the hallway. He seems lost. He's an older man with pale white skin, thinning grey hair and his hands in his pockets it seems. He's wearing a brown trench coat and black pants. "Where are you supposed to be?" The moron keeps walking up the hallway ahead of us and I just shrug. Whatever, you know? It's just a drill. Let the asshole keep walking around if he wants to. "Sir, you're not…" Just as she starts to tell the man he can't be walking around again, he turns around to face us and for just a split second, I watch him pull something shiny from his waistband and point it at Iz. I know it's not happening in slow motion, but it sure seems like it. It seems like I'm watching something happen out of a movie. And even though the man is standing at a decent distance away from us, I see his finger clench.

"IZ, MOVE!" I grab onto her arm so tight that I could've probably broken it, just as I hear the a soft clicking noise followed by a very loud explosion. It sounded like someone lit off a stick of dynamite in this hallway. But even harder than I grab Iz's arm, I throw her out of way and over into a wall. I see her back slam against the wall and her head snap back against the metal of a fire extinguisher. With her eyes closed, she brings her hand up to hold her head but she opens her eyes up and immediately drops her hand down. I think I hurt myself when I threw her out of the way, because I have this awful burning sensation in my chest. And I feel a little bit lightheaded. Unless…

"OH MY GOD, ALEX!" Even though she's only a step and a half away from me, she runs over and just as she starts running, I lose my balance. I don't feel like my legs can support my weight. Halfway expecting to hurt myself, I collapse down on the floor but Iz doesn't let me completely fall down. She catches my top half before my head hits the ground. I think my eyes are closed because I don't see anything but darkness. "NO, ALEX… STAY AWAKE. DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU STAY AWAKE!" Her fingers curl themselves through my hair as she's holding my head. I gotta be honest, I'm not feeling…good. I can halfway hear what she's saying, floating in and out of consciousness. "ALEX… PLEASE. PLEASE…" I feel something drip down on my cheek. She's crying. "…Please stay alive…I love you." Her lips touch my forehead. "…I'm gonna be right back… I'll be right back. I'm gonna go find help…somebody WILL help us. Please don't die on me." She kisses me on my lips. "…I'll be right back. He's not gonna come back…I'll be right back…" She whispers in my ear.

She puts her arms underneath of mine and slides me over to a corner. I'm not feeling like I can help her much, but I still do have some strength in me. I help her out by holding my own weight because I know I'm heavy. She keeps one arm around mine and opens up a door to a conference room that was less than ten feet away from us before she started dragging me. I glance down at the floor where she dragged me from and I see a trail of blood so deep and plentiful that it's not even red anymore; it's a deep shade of purple. I've seen that much blood before…I'm a surgeon. It's just so surreal to see my own on the floor like this. I think it's adrenaline, but I'm not feeling any pain right now. I'm mostly just feeling weak and like I can't breathe. That's a lot of blood, by the way. "You're gonna be okay…" She's crying so hard that I can hardly even hear what she's saying…or maybe that's just me losing consciousness.

She shuts the door behind us and kneels down to me. It's dark in this room because the blinds are drawn and the lights aren't on. It's either cold in here or I'm really dying. I'm freezing. "I'm gonna go get some help… I'll be RIGHT back, babe…do you hear me?" She kisses my lips once more. "I love you, okay? And that's why you can't die… you can't die because I love you. Just hang on for me Alex… I love you." She kisses me again. "I'll be right back."

Better for her to leave me, you know? I think I'm gonna die. I'm pretty sure I'm done. I'm just glad she doesn't have to watch this happen to me. My eyes are open all by themselves up but they feel so heavy that I just have to close them. Before I close them though, the last thing I see is the ankles of orange scrub pants and pink shoes running off in the opposite direction that we came from. The lights above my head get a little blurry and I just close my eyes again. My shirt is sticking to my skin and so are my pants, so I know I must be bleeding a whole hell of a lot for the blood to be down to my legs. I'm a surgeon and I have lots of medical training under my belt. I have a GSW to my chest…I'm not gonna make this. But I'm just glad Iz doesn't have to watch me die.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"What do you think lockdown means?" Shane puts down a card on the bench and waits for Leah to take her turn. I'm not playing, I'm just watching. I thought this lockdown thing was just a drill but we've been on lockdown for like an hour now. I think if it was a drill, they would've been let us out already. So maybe it's not a drill. Maybe there really is some kind of danger. I've never even heard of a hospital being on lockdown though. What could that possibly even mean? "When schools go into lockdown, doesn't that usually mean there's an intruder in the school? Does it even mean the same thing as when a school goes into lockdown?" I just shrug my shoulders and sigh. I wish Steph was here. No, I got stuck in here with Leah, Heather and Shane with no Steph. Steph's shift started at 7:30 while me, Leah, Shane and Heather's shifts all started at 8:00. We were in here waiting for our assignments for the day when we all got the page that we were in lockdown and we couldn't move.

"Someone probably stole a baby from the nursery or something." Leah puts a card down and rests her chin on the bench because she's sitting on the floor and she's level with it. "I always think it's kind of funny when babies get stolen… like who would really want a screaming, crying, pooping newborn? You could steal drugs… why steal a baby from a hospital? I do…I think it's hilarious when babies get stolen from the nursery." I just shake my head. I never did understand Leah's sense of humor. What's funny about a baby getting stolen? Shane kicks Leah in the shin underneath the bench and she wrinkles her brow before she gets it. "Oh…crap. Sorry, Jo… that's totally not funny. That wouldn't be funny of somebody stole your baby…"

I run my hand through my hair and put my hands on my knees. My baby's been moving nonstop today. It was cute at first but now it's starting to annoy me because it's making me feel nauseous. Good thing we're on lockdown though. I'd be feeling even worse if I had to be running patients today while Aubree decides to be active. "…No, it would be funny if someone stole my kid." I mumble. "It'd be mighty funny to watch me kill a bitch. I'm killing somebody if they take my kid and that's that. I swear to god I might strangle someone if they even think about touching my baby." I sigh. "…I'll kill someone just for thinking about it."

Heather laughs at that. "Little Aubree can be like…our mascot or something. She can wear little scrubs and we can take her on rounds with us." That makes me smile. I can just imagine my little baby wearing scrubs, paling around with me on rounds. I'll even get her a tiny little stethoscope. Do they make scrubs that little? "When is she due again?"

"May 1st." My mind is just going wild, honestly. I'm thinking about Steph and Alex. I hope Steph's okay. Whatever the crisis is, I mean. I don't think it's anything real serious but just in case it is, I hope she's doing okay. I know Alex is fine. Alex is so strong…nothing really phases him. I know my Alex is fine so I'm not worried about him. I am worried about my Stephy though. I tried to call her and see what's up but she didn't call me back. And I texted Alex to see if he knows anything about the reason we're on lockdown but he didn't text back. I hope the both of them are okay. I really would rather be anywhere in this world than here in this locker room with Shane, Heather and Leah. I at least wish Steph was here. Because if Steph was here, at least I'd have something to talk about other than Aubree. Once people find out that you're pregnant, it's hard to steer the conversation elsewhere. And I'm not as close with the other three so that's all they know to talk to me about. I'd actually rather them ignore me than keep asking me about Aubree.

"Are we all invited to your baby shower? Steph said that she's throwing it but that doesn't necessarily mean we're invited, does it?" Leah puts her hand of cards down and looks up at me. "Except Shane, of course. Baby showers aren't for guys…"

"You guys can definitely come if you want." I trace out my name on the wood of the bench. "I don't really know who all to invite anyway. I don't have many friends." I erase my invisible name with my finger and write out my full name. J-O-S-E-P-H-I-N-E. I erase that as well and write out W-I-L-S-O-N. I don't really want to talk about babies with them anymore. I don't want them to think that since I'm pregnant, the only option for them to talk to me about is my baby. I'm still a person and I'm still their age. They don't have to limit our conversations to baby talk. "…So what do you guys think the crisis is? What do you think we're on lockdown for?"

"My guess is that one of the psych patients got out." Shane throws out there.

"Definitely a missing baby from the nursery." Leah says.

"I'm going with… psych patient got out too." Heather nods.

"…That seems plausible. Although it would be fun if—" Interrupting my sentence, the door to the locker room busts open and makes all four of us jump out of our skin. Steph runs over to where we're sitting and she looks…oh my god. "…Steph." I whisper her name, just staring at her. She has what looks like blood all over her scrub top and her pants and her already wild hair is scoured all over her head. Her glasses are misty and she's crying. I've never seen Steph cry before. I'm totally freaked out. I stand up and walk over to her, since Shane, Heather and Leah all seem to weirded out by the sight of her with blood all over to come over and comfort her. "Steph…" I call her name, aloud this time. "Whose blood is this? Is this your blood?" I touch her shirt. "…Steph!" She won't answer me. My worst fear is coming true. My best friend is hurt, I think.

"…There's a shooter in the hospital, guys…" She says, but her voice is so empty and emotionless. I don't even think she's there. Leah and Heather both scream "WHAT?!" at the same time and I feel my heart sink down to the pit of my stomach. A shooter? "THERE IS A FUCKING SHOOTER IN THE HOSPITAL." She screams again, merely reacting to the fact that the two of them said the word "what."

"Are you kidding?!" Shane springs up off the floor and throws his cards down.

"DO I LOOK LIKE I'M FUCKING KIDDING?!" Steph's freaking out. I put my hands against her shoulders and look her in her eye. She's always calming me down when I'm freaking out; it's time for me to return the favor. But I'm just not as good at it as she is when it comes to me. "I SAW HIM! I SAW HIM, GUYS. HE…SHOT…HE SHOT…" She can't even get it out. "HE SHOT A SECURITY GUARD RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I'M A…I'M…A…SUR…SURGEON…BU…BUT HE….HE DIED, JO! HE DIED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!"

"Steph calm down…" I'm relieved that all this blood isn't hers. It must be the dead security guard's blood. I rub her shoulders. "Calm down…" I don't have fresh scrubs for her but I do have a thermal on underneath of mine. "Here, let's get you out of these…" I grab the rim of her shirt. I'll give her my scrub top and I'll just walk around in a thermal. It's no big deal. She slaps my hands away from her and I get the picture so I just let go. "…Okay. Sit down then…"

"YOU SIT DOWN!"

"I don't need to… Steph, it's okay. I'm so glad you're alive." I pull her into my arms, not caring that I'm gonna get blood all over myself. "You're in shock…"

"NO JO, YOU'RE IN SHOCK."

"…No I'm not?"

"JO, ALEX WAS SHOT! HE WAS SHOT AND HE'S DEAD…HE'S DEAD…HE….HE'S….IN….HE'S IN A FUCKING CONFERENCE ROOM…WITH…WITH FUCKING IZZIE AND DR. SLOAN AND…HE'S SHOT. HE'S DEAD!"

"…You're lying to me." I just got so dizzy. I feel like I'm gonna puke. This huge wave of heat just washed over me and I'm so hot. And I feel dizzy and lightheaded and she's lying. She's lying to me. FUCK this lockdown crap. FUCK IT. "WHICH CONFERENCE ROOM?!" I gather myself and go over to the door.

"JO, NO! YOU'RE GONNA GET KILLED!" Shane rushes over to me and stands in front of the door. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO STAY RIGHT HERE!"

"WHICH CONFERENCE ROOM, STEPHANIE?!" I duck underneath of Shane and grab onto the doorknob.

"IS SOMEBODY GONNA HELP ME HOLD HER BACK?!" Shane screams. Leah runs over to me, as does Heather. Steph's just standing there, in complete shock of what she just witnessed. "JO, YOU HAVE TO STAY IN HERE! WE'RE NOT GONNA LET YOU DIE!"

"GET OFF OF ME!" I don't know how, but somehow I manage to get the three of them off me and I bust out of the locker room. To hell with them. Alex isn't dead and I need to go see him. Steph made a fucking mistake and I have to go to that conference room just to prove that it's NOT him. It's NOT him. He's not dead…what is she talking about? He's not dead. He's up in Pediatrics somewhere with Dr. Robbins. He's not in a conference room dead.

"Wait…Jo…" Behind me, I hear Steph's weak little voice call out. I stop walking and she latches onto me. "…I'm not letting you go alone. You're not dying alone." She holds my hand and I swear, there's nothing in this world that could persuade me to let Steph's hand go. This is my best fucking friend in the world but this is my BABY we're talking about. He can't be dead. They're gonna have to… they're gonna have to put me in the casket with him. I swear to GOD, they have to bury me with him. Steph squeezes my hand. There's no way she's being stronger than me and she's clearly just traumatized by watching someone get SHOT TO DEATH in front of her. I'm losing my fucking mind. "He's over here… I…I walked by… I walked by to hide in the conference room and…I saw him. I saw them…he's in here…" Steph's voice is so jumpy and shaky. She's so out of it but she's with me. I love her so much.

She leads me to the darkest conference room on the floor and I can't see anything because the shades are drawn. I don't even know what I'm about to walk into, but I reach out with my free hand and twist the doorknob. And as soon as I get the door open, I hear a mixture of screaming and crying and orders being yelled. That's definitely Alex's scream…no mistaking that. Steph's holding my hand so tight that I can't shake her, so I just drag her into the room right along with me. I can't find my voice, but I find it in myself to slam the door behind me and Steph. He's lying on the conference table, shirtless. There is blood EVERYWHERE. Dr. Sloan is on top of the table with him, doing something to him and on the other end of the table by Alex's head is that blonde bitch.

"…WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!" The scream that just came out of my mouth is so demonlike… I'm hardly even Jo anymore. Jo's gone. I don't know who this person is. I shake my hand out of Steph's hand and go over to the blonde bitch. She has his face in her hands and she's kissing his head. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!" Something in my body just…snaps when I see her kissing him. "ALEX!"

"YOU CAN GET OUT!" She screams at me.

"He pushed her out the way." In the calmest voice I've heard all day, Dr. Sloan explains to me. He's sterilizing Alex's chest. OH MY GOD…HE GOT SHOT IN HIS CHEST. OH MY GOD… "Gunman approached him and Stevens and he pushed her out of the way… she left to come find me… he's losing a lot of blood… too much blood."

"YOU **LEFT **HIM?! YOU **LEFT **HIM?!" Again, I don't know where Jo went, but I'm NOT her. I put my hands against her shoulders and push her so hard that she falls out of her chair. "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! YOU LEFT HIM?!" She gets up out of the chair she fell off of and charges after me but I put my hands out and push her into a window. I could kill her. I'm GONNA kill her, fuck that. "YOU LEFT HIM?! ARE YOU STUPID?! HE GOT SHOT AND YOU LEFT HIM?! YOU DUMB BITCH, HE COULD'VE DIED! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO STAY WITH HIM!"

"I LEFT TO GO GET HELP, BITCH!" She pushes her hands out and jolts me in the chest. "I DIDN'T SEE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH HIM DURING THE LOCKDOWN! HE PUSHED ME OUT OF THE WAY AND I WASN'T GONNA LET HIM DIE! HE SAVED MY LIFE AND I _LOVE _HIM! I HAD TO GO GET HELP!"

"YOU STILL LEFT HIM!"

"HE LOVES ME, NOT YOU!"

I told you, Jo's gone. I'm not Jo anymore…and whoever I am right now, she's willing to fight. I grip my hands around her neck and squeeze around her windpipe, all the while she's kicking her legs at me and punching at my face. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU…I'M NOT KIDDING!" I feel arms wrap around my waist and someone gives me a hard yank. No, I really want to kill her. I want her DEAD. My life will be so much better if she's dead. I'M PERSONALLY GONNA KILL HER. I want her to DIE.

"Jo…Jo, STOP IT!" Steph's screaming in my ear. "STOP IT, YOU'RE PREGNANT! YOU'RE NOT FIGHTING! JO, LET GO!" She keeps pulling me and finally, I release my hands from around her neck. Oooooh my god…I'm gonna kill her.

"ENOUGH, YOU TWO! HE DOESN'T NEED YOU TWO IN HERE SCREAMING AND HOLLERING AND FIGHTING! STEVENS, GET OVER HERE ! WILSON, GET OUT!" Dr. Sloan yells at the both of us.

"I'LL KILL HER!" Steph literally picked me up off my feet and is currently carrying me away from her. I'm kicking my legs, trying to break free so I can kill her. I'm so serious, I want to MURDER her. She LEFT him. Do you hear me? She LEFT him to DIE. She…she…LEFT him. I don't care if she went to go get help…she LEFT HIM. He could've died alone. My BABY could've died alone.

"You're not killing anybody….You're freaking out right now and I need you to chill because I'm already freaking out." Steph holds my hands to calm me down. I look behind her back and watch Dr. Sloan shove a tube into Alex's bullet hole, eliciting a scream that I have never heard in my life. He's in pain…

I rip out of Steph's grip and go back to where blonde bitch is standing. She's hovering over Alex's face. "Babe…calm down. I'm here… I'm right here. It's okay, Alex…" She's stroking his hair and kissing his face.

I push her away. "Move." I mumble and replace her. "…Alex…" I hold his head in my hands and I just…lose it. He's looking up at me with tears running down his cheeks in the most pain I've ever seen him in and it's crushing me. He's gonna die… this isn't an operating room. He needs an operating room. He's gonna die on me. I love him so much…he can't die. I love him… "Baby, it's me… it's me. It's Jo…" I stroke his hair and kiss him on his lips. He has blood everywhere, including his mouth but I don't care. He's gonna die… "I'm right here." My tears drip down on his cheeks and I sniff. "I love you… I love you so much. I know I don't say it, but I do… I love you." I kiss his lips again. "I love you… please don't die…" He groans in pain, screaming when he can't handle it. I wish he was unconscious. I don't want him to feel any of this. "It's okay… it's okay…"

"ONE OF YOU TWO HAVE TO SHUT HIM UP!" Dr. Sloan yells again.

"…Shh…" I kiss his lips. "Shh… baby, he's fixing you. But you have to be quiet. I love you…shhh…" I stroke his hair some more. I literally can't deal with seeing him like this. My legs are so weak. He's dying on me… I love him so much. I've never loved somebody the way I love him. I can't be strong for him. "Shhh…."

"I…Izz…" His voice is so hoarse and he's crying. He's crying so hard, he's in so much pain. "Please don't leave me, Iz… I love you." _What? _Just when I thought I couldn't hurt anymore. I thought my heart couldn't possibly hurt any more than what it already does… "I love you, Iz…"

"I told you he wanted me." She pushes me out of the way and hovers over him instead. "Now you get out of here. I told you so…"

"….Alex." Okay, Jo's back. Jo's back…and Jo's hurt. Physically. My stomach hurts. I can't…believe… I turn around and sit in the corner of the conference room. Steph sits down next to me. "…He can't die. Steph, make sure he doesn't die… make SURE he doesn't die..." My heart hurts so bad. I can't breathe. I clutch my hand over my chest and try to take deep breaths, like we tell patients to do when they're having a hard time breathing. I don't have asthma or any respiratory problems but I think I'm having an asthma attack. I can't breathe. I love him. He can't want her. He wants HER?! "…Steph, go make sure my baby doesn't die. He can't die." He pushed her out of the way to save her. He got shot trying to save her…and she left him…and he wants her… what am I even doing here?

"Steph, make sure he doesn't die…" That comes out of my mouth in a whisper and I'm not sure, but I think I just lost consciousness.


	51. Not Ready To Let Go

**A/N:** So some aspects of this chapter may be confusing for you, which is why I labelled both points of view. I usually don't tell you who's point of view it starts in, but because this chapter can be confusing I did. Just a tip, read ALEX'S point of view first, but ACT LIKE Jo's point of view came first for certain parts. They intertwine with each other. Some of the events happened at the same time, just in different points of view. It might be a little confusing at first but I promise it'll all make sense if you read it the way it's presented.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes, by the way.

And remember that some aspects of this story are AU so I can make some things happen that didn't necessarily happen in the show. Anyway, this chapter is kind of long but it's REALLY good if I do say so myself. It's emotional, just a warning. It's very emotional but it's some of the best writing I've ever done in my life.

**ENJOY!**

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><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View.<span>**

"_Are you ever gonna come back?" I don't want her to hurt herself, so that's the only reason I nestle my hand inside the handle of her suitcase and carry it for her. Tears are rolling off my cheeks down onto my light red t-shirt, making the shirt almost black around the parts that the fabric is wet. For what it's worth, I won't go out tonight. I'll stay home and I'll lay in bed with her and I'll hold her forever, if that's what she wants. I won't go out. I love her more than I can explain to anyone and something about this time is just different. She's left me many of times before but I really think she's leaving me this time. "Iz, what about our wedding? You're coming back, aren't you?" I put the suitcase down on the rainy wet porch and block the doorway. She's trying to pass me but she can't. I used to wrestle and I was good at it. I know how to block a 5'9, 130 pound blonde girl from leaving out of the door. "Izzie, you're coming back…aren't you?"_

"_Alex, if I don't leave now…then I'm just gonna be stuck here." I watch her shove her arms into her jacket and grab the rest of her things off the coat hangers hanging in the hallway. She stuffs her coats and jackets and the shoes she's not wearing into a garbage bag and ties it up. "I'm gonna be stuck here. Stuck here, stuck in a marriage that was a mistake the entire time, stuck with a husband that doesn't even want me. Stuck with you…while you're stuck with me. I don't want that. We deserve better than that." She ties her blonde locks up into a ponytail and grabs the garbage bag she just packed, in addition to the ones she packed upstairs. "I'm not…coming back. I'll find a job out in Chehalis and I'll be fine. That's the beauty about leaving, Alex…you get a clean break. Clean break from everybody. I'm going home…"_

"WILSON! Get over here…" All of a sudden, I see lights overhead. I feel someone pushing against my chest and someone's hands on my face but I can't keep my eyes open long enough. I can hear everything, though. "EDWRDS OR WILSON…ONE OF YOU TWO NEEDS TO PULL IT TOGETHER, YOU CAN'T JUST SIT HERE AND DO NOTHING!" I close my eyes again. "EDWRDS, GO FIND ME A CRASH CART…NOW." That's the last thing I hear before I'm sucked back into the horrible reality of Iz leaving me.

"_This is home…" I rub the bridge of my nose and try to take a breath but I can't breathe. I feel like my heart was just ripped clean out of my chest. I'm losing her…losing the woman I swear I want to devote my life to. She said this is a mistake. She said that our relationship is a mistake and she thinks I want to be with Jo. I don't care about Jo, though. I don't care about Jo, I don't care about anything…I just want to be with her. I don't think this is a mistake. I'm about to start my life with her. I've been with this woman since I was 27. I love her…she can't leave. "Izzie, this IS home. This is our home…you can't just leave." Another round of tears trail down my cheeks and roll off my chin, down onto my shirt. "I love you…doesn't that count for something? I love you and I want to marry you…please just stay, Izzie. Just stay. I'll be better…"_

"_This isn't about you being better, Alex…don't you see that?" She stands in front of me, waiting for me to move so she can leave out the door. "This is about you being in love with someone else. I love you…but I can't stay and make this mistake. I can't stay and watch you fall in love with her. Do you know what that will do to me? If I stay and watch the man…I'm MADLY in love with…fall in love with someone else? I can't do that." She looks past me then back at me, in my eyes. "This isn't my home, Alex. This is just a place where I worked and I can do that anywhere. I can find another job…I'll be fine." She stands up on her tip toes and kisses the corner of my mouth. "…If you really love me, let me go. Let me…go, Alex. Let me go so you can live."_

"_I don't wanna live without you though, that's the thing!" I'm starting to get angry. I don't know if it's that false angry that you get whenever you're just so sick of being upset for so long. You know how you get that sense of irritation when you're just so sick of being sad…it turns to anger. I think I'm starting to get that kind of angry. "You're not leaving me, Iz. You're not. Unpack your shit and take off your coat. You're not going anywhere. You're gonna sit your ass down and we're gonna talk about this. You're not leaving. I love you… I'm not letting you go anywhere. You don't let the things you love go." I pull the front door shut as I step back in the house, leaving her suitcase out on the porch and her car running. "You need me. You need me to make sure you take your meds, you keep up with your shit… get real, Iz. You're not leaving."_

"WHERE IS EDWARDS WITH THAT DAMN CRASH CART?"

"_I am leaving though, Alex."_

"Wilson, can you put in a chest tube?" My ears innocuously tune into the things happening around me once again as I'm yanked out of what's happening between me and Izzie. I'm glad something's keeping me out of that reality. Iz is leaving me… she's leaving me and somebody's postponing my heartache. "I need you to get over here…sterilize right above the wound…and insert the chest tube." Sounds like Mark. Mark Sloan, I mean. He's a real asshole. He never did like me. "WILSON! I need you to get it together if I'm gonna save his life. Sterilize his chest…"

_She keeps her bags in her hands and takes one step towards the door. "I'll keep up with my medicine, I won't kill myself. I'll be alright. And you have to be okay without me, Alex. You have to be okay without me because I'm gonna be okay without you." She wipes my face with her free hand. "And you might not realize it yet, but this is better for us. This is better." She nods her head, trying to be more convincing. "Bye, Alex…" She opens up the front door and this time, I let her. Whatever, she can go. I don't care. She'll be back. She'll need me someday. She'll be back and I'll be here waiting for her when she decides to. She just needs some time to cool down and I'll give that to her._

_She closes the door behind herself and that's the end of everything. Something inside my chest tells me that I need to go out the door and scream after her, but something in my legs won't allow me to. The bigger part of me is overruling the part that tells me to go after her, so I don't. Instead, I put one foot in front of the other and go over to the window next to the door. I push the curtains back just a little and look. She's shutting her trunk and walking around to the front of her car so she can get in it. "…Bye, Iz." I mumble to myself and close the curtain back. I stalk to the kitchen and grab the first of many beers I'm going to drink tonight. Effortlessly, I twist the cap off and throw it on the floor as I walk back to the living room. I sink down into the couch and grab my cell phone out of my pocket._

This terrible, awful burning sensation plucks me from my reality and I can't help but scream. It takes a lot out of me, but I scream. And when I scream, my eyes open and when I look up, I see this brunette girl with a long, messy ponytail hovering over my chest. But I look over and see Iz and I feel better. This stranger is sticking a tube in my chest…and it hurts like hell. "Iz…."

"It's okay… I'm here." She kisses my chest.

The brunette sticks a tube in the hole she just cut in my body and I scream again. "Iz…"

She kisses me on my lips to quiet me down and it works. "He's losing way too much blood…" Her voice is calm and directly in my ear. Her fingers are burning hot against my cheeks and occasionally, I feel water droplets fall down on my face. She's crying but she's here. "Alex, don't close your eyes…baby, you have to keep your eyes OPEN…Do you hear me? Keep your eyes open…" She's here. Why is she crying? "Mark, he's not gonna make it…is he?" Her hands move from my cheeks back to my head and she's not looking at me anymore but she's here. She's not gone…she's here. She's right here. I feel her skin to my skin. She's right here. "He's really not gonna make it, is he?" Her voice is shaky and barely audible. Why is she so upset? What's she talking about? Who's not gonna make it? "He's losing way too much blood…" She takes her hands away from me. Wait…not again. This can't happen again. I won't let it happen again.

"Iz… don't go…" For some reason, I don't think she heard that. My own voice isn't much better than hers. It's taking a lot out of me to talk to her. It's like speaking even one word is taking everything completely out of my body. I feel another set of burning hot hands against my chest and when this pair of hands squeezes my skin, I feel burning radiating all over my body. It hurts…but I don't have it in me to scream anymore. Why does my chest burn so freaking bad? Oh yeah, that's right. Someone was gonna shoot her. Yeah, that's right. Some asshole pulled out a gun on Iz and he was gonna shoot her… he shot me instead. "Iz, please don't go…" It hurts to even say that and it tastes bad to say that. I taste blood in my mouth. "We're gonna get married…and have lots of babies, just like you said… don't go…"

"I'm not going anywhere." One of her hands leaves my head and wraps itself around my hand. Her skin is so hot. Either she's running a fever or I'm getting cold…like people get cold when they're dying. I think I'm getting cold. "I'm right here…I'm never leaving you." Her lips fall against mine and even her lips are burning hot. She kissed me though. She kissed me and she's right here. She was just leaving me and now she's right here. I thought I lost her… "We're gonna get married, yeah… and we're gonna have…so many babies….you have to hold on, though." Her tears drip down on my arm. I'm surprised that I can feel my arms. I lost feeling in my legs a while ago, actually. "Someone's gonna come in here and tell us that we can leave pretty soon…" She kisses my hand. "And we're gonna get you to another hospital…and you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be okay… and we're gonna get married…"

She said we're gonna get married. And she even said we're gonna have babies. That's reason enough for me to be okay. I'll be fine. I'll be okay because she didn't leave me. She didn't leave me and she's right here and we're gonna get married and we're gonna have kids. She said it herself. I just have to hold on. Somebody just come in here and get me outta here so I can be okay to marry her. She didn't leave me. "…We're gonna be together? 'Cause we're meant to be together, huh?" As long as I hold onto the look of her face, I don't feel anything. I don't think that's a good thing though. Me not being able to feel anything…that's not good. But I see her face. Her round, chocolate brown eyes and long eyelashes. Her smooth, blemish-free white skin and her blonde, shoulder-length hair. As long as I see her, I don't feel any pain.

"Yeah…we're meant to be together." She kisses my lips again. "I love you…do you hear me?" Yeah, I hear you. You don't know how long I've wanted to hear her say that. I've been missing her saying that. If I die, at least I heard her say that. "I love you so much, Alex… and I'm not gonna let you die. You're gonna be okay." Her lips meet mine again. "Just hold on… just a little bit longer, hold on…" I'm holding on…

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Jo… Jo…JO, GET UP!" I feel Steph's hands slap at my face while she's calling my name. Did I pass out? Since when did I take up fainting? I've never fainted a day in my life…that's new. I blink twice and open my eyes, pulling myself back to the fact that I'm sitting in the corner of a conference room while the love of my life is bleeding to death in front of me…and he just told his ex that he loved her in front of my face. "Get up. You are not allowed to freak out right now…I'm freaking out enough for the both of us…" Steph has her hands on my cheeks and she's shaking my face. "Wake your ass up…. get up. On your feet…we're going back to the locker room…you don't need to be here." I blink some more and somehow find the strength to pick myself up off the floor. When I stand up, I notice that my pants are sticking to my legs. I think I might've used the bathroom on myself. I fainted or whatever and I think I peed. Whatever, I don't have the time to be embarrassed about it. I want to get the hell out of here. "Come on…"

Steph interlocks her fingers inside mine and holds my hand. She drags me over towards the door that we came in through. I'm not walking on my own, Steph is dragging me. I can't peel my eyes off the scene on the conference room table. There's so much blood…dripping down off the table and onto the floor, just pouring out of Alex's body. Dr. Sloan is turning his body to examine him and I hear him mumble, "no exit wound", which means the bullet is still inside his chest. She's sitting on the table next to Alex's head with his face in her hands. He's perfectly conscious at the moment because I see his lips moving. His voice is too weak for me to hear what he's saying but he's talking to her. "…Let go, Steph…let go." I pull my hand out of hers but she grabs my arm. "Lemme go… he's dying…" I have this really bad crampy feeling in my stomach but I really can't worry about this damn baby at the moment. "Please let go… I wanna stay…"

"Jo, I'm not letting you stay here. You don't need to be here. You don't need to see this." Steph's arms are now wrapped around my chest and she's trying to pull me out of the room. Steph holding me is like me holding myself; a perfect even match but too perfect that she can't even move me. "What if the shooter hears him screaming and comes back this way? You're pregnant. And what he just said… you don't need to be here to hear that shit… come on." She tries to pull me.

"Get off of me." I say through clenched teeth so she knows that I'm SERIOUS. I'm staying. She releases me from her hold and I start to walk over towards the table. Izzie looks back at me with a disgusted look on his face, like I'm a cockroach or something, and turns back to look Alex in his eye. I'm standing at an okay distance now. I'm not too close to him because he obviously doesn't want me but I'm close enough to hear what he's saying. I can hear their conversation.

"I'm…so…incredibly…pissed off right now…" He chokes out through a couple coughs, clearly uncomfortable and in some degree of pain. Just like my Alex to talk about how irritated he is over being shot. This is so Alex. "I'm gonna kick that guy's ass when I see him…" His voice is so rugged. He shouldn't talk. He really should save his energy.

"Don't worry about that, baby… don't worry about that." She plants a kiss on his forehead and my stomach starts to hurt. I have half a mind to push her off that table and I swear I would, but Alex said that he wants her. And he's dying so I'm gonna respect what he wants. I knew it though. Is it a shame for me to say that I knew it? I knew he didn't love me. I was just in love with the idea that someone like him…someone as perfect, as caring, as kind, as NICE as Alex could want me. Someone like him wanted someone like me and damn, that felt good for as long as it lasted.

"He's losing so much blood and there's no exit wound… he needs a chest tube…" Dr. Sloan cups his hands around the bullet hole in Alex's chest and takes a look at it. "Alex, you're losing a lot of blood, okay?" Dr. Sloan raises his voice so Alex can hear him over the sound of his own heavy breathing. Alex is breathing so hard and groaning in pain that it's a wonder he can hear anything. "You're losing a lot blood and you need a chest tube…"

"No chest tube." My baby sounds terrified. Seriously, he sounds like he's scared to death of a chest tube. "No tube…don't cut me…"

"Dr. Wilson, come here…" Dr. Sloan says to me. I can't go though. Alex doesn't want me. I don't want him to see me and freak out the way he did a little while ago. He asked for her so he should have her. I can't. "Dr….Wilson." I still just stand still. "JO!" I just can't move. "WILSON, GET OVER HERE!" His yelling voice scares the shit out of me so I light a fire under my ass and walk over to him. I try to keep my eyes off Alex, though. I can't watch my baby die. I can't do it. Steph is standing right next to me though. She's like my keeper. Sloan's still mad though. "EDWRDS OR WILSON…ONE OF YOU TWO NEEDS TO PULL IT TOGETHER, YOU CAN'T JUST SIT HERE AND DO NOTHING." I frantically nod my head, agreeing with him. He's right…I can't just sit here and do nothing. "EDWRDS, GO FIND ME A CRASH CART…NOW. I NEED A CRASH CART AND A CHEST TRAY. WILSON, GO GET THE CHEST TRAY, EDWARDS FIND THE CRASH CART. HE NEEDS A CHEST TUBE."

"No tube…" Alex cries out in pain and my heart breaks.

"You need a tube, baby… you need one." She kisses his cheek. "A chest tube will buy you some time so we can help you. I'll be right here…" I purse my lips together and bring the taste of tears into my mouth. I knew I was crying but I didn't realize how hard it was until just now. I feel like I'm going to pee myself again, which is weird because I already emptied my bladder minutes ago when I accidentally passed out. But I feel like I'm going to do it again. I don't even think my heart is in my chest. I think I left it on the floor over there in the corner I was sitting in. He's dying…and he doesn't even want me. He's the love of my fucking life and he doesn't even want me to touch him. She's rubbing him and comforting him and calling him her "baby". He's gonna die on me and the last voice and the last face he's gonna hear isn't even gonna be mine…and it's what he wants. "Alex… Alex…" She taps at his face. "Alex, baby… open your eyes… OPEN YOUR EYES!" She's hysterical. Oh god…he has to open his eyes. I take a step towards his body but I remember that he doesn't want me. He has to open his eyes though. "NO, ALEX…OPEN YOUR EYES, DO YOU HEAR ME?! STAY WITH ME!"

My knees go weak. Have you ever head the saying, "weak in the knees"? I used to think that was a load of bullshit. But I know now that it's a real thing. It's like your knees cave in. You can't support your own weight anymore and you have no choice but to fall. Steph catches me before I completely collapse though. He's dying on me… he's dying. He's the only man I've ever loved like this and I'm losing him. He's gonna die. He hasn't even met his daughter yet and he's dying. I just want one more kiss. "He's dying…" I can't even see straight. My eyes are so watery and my vision is blurry. "He's dying… h…hold his…hold his head. And…and he likes it if you…If you rub his hair…and you have to scratch his scalp…you have to scratch his scalp…" I've never shaken this bad. I'm shaking. My entire body is just shaking, like I'm cold. "Please don't let him die…" I grab onto the table for support and pull myself together long enough to leave the room.

Steph leaves with me and goes the opposite direction from me. _Okay, what are you gonna do if the shooter comes back this way? What if you come face to face with the shooter? _With wobbly legs, I find my way into one of the triage rooms. _Well I'm on the first floor. The main entrance is right there, actually. If the shooter comes towards me, I could just run. I'll run and save myself and my baby. _I open up the triage room and look around for a chest tray. I look down at the floor and I'm met with a puddle—no, a LAKE—of fresh, dark red blood. Jesus Christ… oh my god, that's a lot of fucking blood. I freeze in my tracks while I look at the person that the blood belongs to. It belongs to one of the triage nurses. She's dark-skinned with a lot of long, dark black braids. Her eyes are open and she's lying on the ground motionless with a GSW to her neck. _He won't come back. He already shot up this floor…he won't come back. _I pull myself together and open up the part in the cupboard where the chest trays are kept. My hands are so shaky. I grab a chest tray and squeeze it so I don't drop it in my haste. I turn around, giving one last look to the dead nurse and leave the room.

I have to get this chest tray back to Alex before he loses anymore blood. This chest tray won't save him but it'll buy some time. It'll give him long enough to wait for someone to come help us. He needs an OR…He's gonna die and I love him. And I'll never come back from this because I'll have to look at my baby every day and remember that he used to exist. I look out the front door of the hospital and see cop cars with their lights flashing and black SWAT cars. I could just run out the front door and save me and Aubree. _Alex or Aubree…Alex or Aubree? _But Alex is bleeding out by the moment, so I start to run back to the conference room. Running is a bad idea, I guess because since I have blood all over the bottom of my shoes, it's slippery and I slip and fall. I catch myself and break my fall with my hands though. I heard something crack…but I'm sure it's nothing, you know? I brush myself off and go back to the conference room. My ankle hurts…

I push open the door and shut it behind myself. "The police are here…I think they're gonna start evacuating soon. He just has to wait…" With a sore ankle and already shaky legs, I limp over to Dr. Sloan and present him with the chest tray. Alex's blood is all over the floor and his eyes are closed. I still see a little bit of movement in his chest though, so he's breathing. He's just unconscious. "…Dr. Sloan, is he gonna make it?" I shift my position to take the weight off my sore ankle and I just stare at him. She's hovering over his face, kissing his cheek and holding his hand. "He's gonna make it…he has to." I whisper to myself.

Dr. Sloan rips open the chest tray I brought him and pulls the tube out of it. "WHERE IS EDWARDS WITH THAT DAMN CRASH CART?!" He screams out. He needs the crash cart for the sterilization fluid and the knife to cut him open. He can't do anything without the crash cart. Just as I look over at the door, Steph comes barreling through it, pushing a crash cart with her hands. I could've gone to get a crash cart. She doesn't like Alex…she doesn't have to help me save him. This is probably a bad situation for her, you know?

"He's hallucinating…he's circling…if you're gonna do something, do it now." Izzie's bawling her eyes out, trying to keep Alex awake. His eyes are closed so peacefully that I could mistake him for sleeping. He looks so peaceful. "He needs more fluids… and he really needs a transfusion. He lost way too much… he lost too much." All I can think about is how badly I would love nothing more than to kill her. Seriously, my life would be better without her alive. I want her dead. I want her to die. I wish the shooter would've shot her instead because then I swear I'd let her die. I'm a surgeon, I'm not supposed to let anyone die on my watch…but I'd take great pleasure in watching her bleed to death.

"Oh my god Jo, what happened to you?" Steph's voice is so shaky. She grabs onto my arm and turns it. "What happened?"

"…I…fell." I mumble, still watching Alex. I didn't even realize that I busted my elbow open when I fell. It doesn't hurt. I didn't even know it was there. I look at it myself. I have blood running down my arm coming from a small gash. It won't need stitches, it's just a brush burn type thing. It's fine. "…He needs blood. He needs blood, Steph… he's gonna die on me…"

"Wilson, can you put in a chest tube?" Dr. Sloan asks me. I don't even think I'm completely lucid right now. I just warily nod my head. I have done chest tubes before. I had my cadaver in med school and my professor made me do 100 chest tubes until I got ONE perfect. And after I got one perfect, I had to do five more. I can handle a chest tube… but all I can think is that…she's the last person he's gonna see when he goes. He's dying. See, this is why love is WEAKNESS. It wouldn't hurt this bad if I didn't love him… "I need you to get over here…sterilize right above the wound…and insert the chest tube while I try to hook some FFP into his IV. He's not gonna make it if we wait until evacuations to give him FFP…" All I heard is that he's not gonna make it. He's not even conscious and he's not gonna make it… "WILSON! I need you to get it together if I'm gonna save his life. Sterilize his chest…"

He's still the love of my life. I'd do anything in this world for him. Anything. And I'll kill myself if he dies on me. I swear I can't live in a world that Alex doesn't exist in. They'll have to put a bunk bed in his casket because I'm dying with him…and I swear to that. _Then get it together and do a fucking chest tube. _I pull my mind together and get on top of the table with him. I straddle my legs around his waist and lean to the side where his bullet hole is at. Izzie moves over so I can work and I appreciate that but she can still go die. I put my fingers underneath his bullet hole and count down so I don't hit his artery. I can do these things in my sleep. "…3…4…5…" I hold my hand out to Steph. "Hand me the—" I don't even have to ask, she hands it to me. I pop the top off and messily squirt the dark red liquid all over his chest to sterilize it. I hold my hand out again and she hands me the knife. I put the blade to his chest and push it down deep enough for me to hear a soft "crunch"…that's how I know I'm deep enough. When I'm deep enough, I slide the blade across and cut a hole deep enough for me to shove the tube inside. But when I cut him, he screams and I swear I could just cry. I hurt him…

"**AHHHHHHHHHHHH!**" His scream fills the entire room and his eyes snap open. His eyes meet mine for a second, but I look away and back down at the hole I made. _I'm so sorry baby… I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm so sorry. I'm helping you though. It's almost over… it's almost over. I'm sorry. _My tears are overcoming my ability to see, so I reach up with my hand that's covered in his blood and wipe my face. I put my hands back down and grab the tube. My hands are shaking so bad because I know I'm about to hurt him…hurt him bad, too. _He'll die without, Jo… it's okay. _I say to myself and push the chest tube deep into the hole I made. **"AHHHHHHHHH!" **I can't handle this. _I need to see blood…I need to see blood…if I see blood… _My jaw is trembling. I promised him after I hit him that I'd never hurt him again and here I am, causing him severe pain. Just as a round of tears leave my eyes, I see some blood spilling out of the hole in his chest and into the clear tube. _Oh thank GOD. Thank GOD… I did it. _I take my legs from around the straddle position I have them in and step down from the table.

I hold my stomach and bend over at the waist. My shoulders hunch and abracadabra... out comes the bacon and the sausage and the toast I ate from the cafeteria this morning. Steph doesn't care that I'm puking, she holds me around my chest and kisses my cheek. I hear Izzie telling Dr. Sloan that he's losing too much blood…and he is. He's losing way too much blood. The chest tube will help but not for long. He needs a transfusion and if he doesn't get one soon… I just put a chest tube in the love of my life. I never wanted to have to do that. I want a life of putting in chest tubes and IVs and charging paddles to 300…but I never wanted to have to put a chest tube in someone that I love. I wipe my mouth and stand upwards. Steph holds me tight and I hug her right back. I don't know how I'd get through this without her…she's been my rock. I walk back over towards the table to watch the blood in the chest tube siphoning out. It's a perfect chest tube…I just hope it holds up.

"Iz… don't go…" It's quiet in here, except for the sound of Alex begging her not to leave him. Dr. Sloan is putting FFP in the IV he started a while ago so he's quiet. I just got done throwing up, so I'm quiet. Steph is holding me, so she's quiet. Izzie is holding Alex's hand, so she's quiet. He's the only one talking…and he's calling out for her. I'm not even feeling it anymore though. I'm so numb to everything. I'm just…numb. I'm so emotionally drained. I'm done and I'm numb. "Iz, please don't go…" I close my eyes, hoping that maybe the darkness will subside the pain I'm beginning to feel through him begging her to stay. "We're gonna get married…and have lots of babies, just like you said… don't go…" Ouch…

"I'm not going anywhere." She comforts him. "I'm right here…I'm never leaving you." She kisses him and my chest hurts. I'm gonna have another anxiety attack…I can feel it. "We're gonna get married, yeah… and we're gonna have…so many babies….you have to hold on, though." What about my baby? What about her? She's his too. If he lives through this, he'll want Aubree…won't he? "Someone's gonna come in here and tell us that we can leave pretty soon…" She kisses his hand. He's not gonna live through his. He's gonna die. "And we're gonna get you to another hospital…and you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be okay… and we're gonna get married…" Well I hope I'm not invited to the wedding this time around, you know? I just look at him. His face is so pale. He's dying…

"He needs a transfusion…" I mutter. "Dr. Sloan, he needs a transfusion." I'm starting to come unhinged. I can feel it. I can feel myself losing control of my emotions. I was keeping it together and now I'm not. I can't do this anymore. "He needs a transfusion, he's gonna die… he's gonna die… why didn't they come yet? They're out...side." I can't stop talking all of a sudden. I'm not breathing, just talking. "He needs a transfusion he's gonna die on me and he needs a fucking transfusion and WHY aren't they here yet they should've been here they're right outside why aren't they evacuating us yet he needs to go somewhere he needs a transfusion..." I'm losing it here. He's dying on me and there's nothing I can do about it. This hurts so bad. "HE NEEDS A TRANSFUSION! THEY SHOULD'VE BEEN HERE!" I don't think I've ever heard myself scream like that. "…Someone needs to go to the blood bank…"

"She's right." Izzie takes her mouth off Alex's hand and nods. "Going up to the blood bank and getting some O neg is our best bet…"

"So go get some blood then." Dr. Sloan is making sure the FFP is getting inside of him. Alex is so pale… "Go get some blood. Me and Wilson and Edwards will stay here and monitor him. You run up and get some blood. It's all hands on deck here, Stevens. Edwards and Wilson already ran out…your turn now."

"I can't leave him. I can't go get blood." She shakes her head. "I'm not leaving. What if the shooter's out there and he sees me and he comes back to finish the job? And I can't—"

"I'll go." I cut her off and raise my hand in the air. "Selfish bitch." I shake my head at her. "I don't even understand how he wants you…and you won't even go get him blood. You had no problem leaving him before, now you refuse?" I turn to leave the room.

"You just can't handle the fact that he was NEVER in love with you, can you?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I whip back around and go after her. I've been looking for a reason to strangle her again. "YOU'RE SO FUCKING SELFISH! I'LL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS! HE'S DYING AND HE NEEDS BLOOD AND YOU'RE TOO WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FUCKING SELF! YOU SELFISH FUCKING BITCH!" I pick up the phone off the desk near the door of the conference room and chuck it at her head but I miss. I missed on purpose. She's too close to Alex for me to hit her in the way I want to. Because if I slip up and miss my target, I'll be pissed. So I missed on purpose but I want her to know that I could kill her if I wanted to kill her. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

"Wilson, you have to calm down…" Dr. Sloan puts his hands up, as if he's doing damage control. Steph has her hands on my chest, holding me back. "Calm down."

"Please Jo…" Steph says.

"Let me go." I smack her hands away. "I'm not gonna hit that bitch. She's not even fucking worth it." I cross my arms over my chest and just shake my head. "Should've shot her instead." I mumble under my breath. She just smiles and shakes her head at me. Oh my god I just want to fucking kill her. She doesn't care about him. I CARE ABOUT HIM. I'd do anything for him. Stupid bitch. Stupid SELFISH bitch. She just acts like she cares about him when she doesn't. My blood is boiling. "…I'm going up to the blood bank. I'm not just gonna sit here and watch while he dies." I turn around to leave.

"Wilson!" Dr. Sloan yells after me. I turn around fast, angry. "…He's too far gone. There's nothing we can do for him without an OR. He's gonna die." Dr. Sloan looks so defeated. "He needs a transfusion and he needs packed red blood cells…he's gonna turn septic and his organs are gonna fail. Even if you do make it to the blood bank…we don't have the materials to transfuse him. You should come hold his hand…he's going."

"NO HE'S NOT!" He's not dying. He's not dying. I refuse to let him die. "NO! NO!" I run over to him, despite my badly aching ankle and hold his face in my hands, completely ignoring her. "Alex…. Alex…" My tears are falling all over his face. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. He's so pale. I love him, he cannot DIE. I keep my hands on his face. "Alex…I love you." I lean down and kiss his lips. "I love you so much…." I curl my fingers through his hair and kiss his forehead. I scratch his scalp because that's his favorite and I put my lips to his ear. "I love you…okay? I love you so much. Me and Aubree…we love you." I'm losing my fucking mind. I'm seriously going crazy. When he dies, I'm killing her. I'm gonna strangle her with my bare hands and then I'm gonna go find an IV kit and I'm gonna hook my own IV up to oxygen and I'm gonna send an air embolism to my heart and I'm gonna kill myself. That's how these next few moments are gonna play out. "Alex…" I sniff. "…We still have to publish our book, okay?" I can't stop crying. My whole body is aching. I can't stop… "Remember? A…Alex and…Alex and Jo's Guide to Surviving a Scary Movie." I crack a smile at that and hold his head in my arms. "And I can't paint… I can't paint. You can't die on me… you said you'd never leave me…you can't die on me…" I touch his lips and they're ice cold. He's still breathing but he's gonna stop soon. He's circling. He's gonna be gone. "…I'll always love you." I stand up straight and unbuckle my watch from my wrist. He always said how much he liked it. It's blood crusted, but I take it off and slide it in his hand anyway. He can have it. I'll keep my ring forever…even if it only cost twenty bucks. "Keep that safe for me." I lay my head on his chest and listen to his slow…very faint…heartbeat. _He thinks you sing pretty… _"…Darling I will be loving you 'til we're seventy…" I whisper. _He can't hear you. _"And baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23…" My jaw is trembling but his heart is slowing. I sing a little louder so he can hear me. "And I'm thinking bout how…people fall in love in mysterious ways." I wipe my face and keep singing to him. I'm still crying so hard. "Maybe just the touch of a hand…but me…I fall in love with you…every single day…" I kiss his cheek. "I just wanna tell you I am… so honey now…" His cheeks are so cold. "Take me into your loving arms…kiss me under the light of a thousand stars…place your head on my beating heart. I'm thinking out loud…maybe we found love right where we are."

"Wilson, we need to cover him up…" Dr. Sloan puts his hands around my arms.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I throw my elbows back at him and keep my place right on my baby's chest. "…There's gotta be something else we can do…" I'm not ready to let him go. I love him. I'm not ready to let him go yet. "Mark…" I don't know when I started calling Dr. Sloan by his first name, but it seems fitting. "There's gotta be something more we can do. What if I…what if I run really fast and get the blood…and can't we hook it into his IV? Or…he can swallow it. He can drink it…or something." Now I'm a doctor…I know that you need the proper materials to give a blood transfusion. But I'll try anything. I'm not ready to let him go. Izzie's just crying over his body but I'm not ready. I love him. He cannot die. "Mark, please… PLEASE…tell me there's something we can do…" He's still breathing but it's just barely there. "Please…"

Steph puts her arms around me and holds me. I accept her hug but I still look at Dr. Sloan, desperate. Dr. Sloan shakes his head at me. "Wilson… we tried everything we could do. Chest tube…" He just looks at Alex. "That chest tube bought him more time but… he lost too much blood…And he—" Before he can finish his statement, the door to the conference room busts open. All of us jump. I wrap my arms around Steph because if the gunman comes in here and shoots us, I wanna die in my best friend's arms. Dr. Sloan puts his hands up in a surrendering motion and Izzie stands up, still holding Alex's hand. But it's not the shooter. It's a man in black clothes with a large, sniper gun. Quietly, the man waves his hand at us, signaling that we're okay to come out of the room. He drops his sniper and waves at us some more. I look back at Alex. I still see his chest moving. I let go of Steph and rush back over to Alex.

"Baby….hold on, okay? Just hold on…" I kiss his lips. Steph barrels out of the room and Dr. Sloan runs after her. I'm alone. I could kill her right now if I wanted to…but I won't. I grab his hand and kiss it. I drop his hand and put my fingers to his neck to check his pulse. It's weak, but it's still there. He's still alive. "I'm gonna get you help…I'll be right back." I kiss him one more time and cease all contact with him. "…You stay right fucking here with him." I snap at Izzie and rush out of the room as well. As soon as I'm out into the hallway, I see a bunch of other people that are being liberated from our floor rushing out the front doors. I push my way through the crowds to get out the door, but I'm stopped by Steph and Dr. Sloan. They're with a paramedic, briefing the paramedic on Alex's case. Glad we're on the same page here. I jump right in. "GSW to the right chest, no exit wound so the bullet is still lodged inside." I just go completely into Dr. Jo mode. "He needs packed red blood cells and a transfusion. He got FFP but he's in DIC…multi-system organ failure. We gave him a chest tube and ran fluids but he's circling the drain." I put my hand against the gurney while they wheel it to the conference room where everything went down. "You need to get him somewhere FAST."

The paramedic wheels the gurney into the conference room and moves Izzie out of the way. I breathe a slight sigh of relief as I turn to Steph instead of watching how the paramedic loads him onto the gurney. Steph just looks at me with tears in her eyes. Her hair is so bushy and wild and curly and she has blood all over her scrubs and her arms and her legs and her face. We're both thinking the same thing, because as soon as she reaches out to hug me, I reach out too. And we hug so tight for SO long. I sniff and put my head against her shoulder. She squeezes me really tight. "…I love you, Jo." She mumbles and kisses me on my cheek, long and hard. "I love you…I'm so proud of you…and I love you so much."

"I love you too, Steph." I squeeze her so tight. She's my best friend in the entire freaking world. She could've let me do all of this alone, you know? When she came barreling into the locker room all bloody and traumatized, she could've just stayed there and let me go see about Alex myself. But she came with me. She didn't want me to die alone…and she held me and picked me up and helped me. She risked her life to save the love of mine…and my best friend for that. I turn my head as I hear the gurney being wheeled out. Alex is loaded on it with a white blanket draped over his bottom half. He's being pumped with fresh fluids and he has a tube up his nose and Izzie is right by his side. "He's gonna be okay…" I say aloud, still hugging my best friend.

"Thanks to you, Wilson." Dr. Sloan stands beside me and Steph and taps my shoulder. "That chest tube was perfect…bought him some time he didn't have. You saved his life, Jo." He crosses his arms. "…You saved the man's life. And that's real love."

"I'm proud of you." Steph kisses my cheek again and I just half smile. I'm still feeling pretty lousy, you know? He chose his dying breath to say he loved her. What the hell am I to him? I love him so much, I'd do anything for him. She just sat on her ass and did nothing. I love him. I'd do anything in this world for that man. But he loves her, it's clear. "…Come on." Steph holds my hand and pulls me. "I want you to see someone for that cut on your arm." She pulls me out through the doors and I start walking with her. Dr. Sloan is following behind us.

"MARK!" Somebody from behind us screams at him as soon as we get out of the hospital and into the sunlight. I turn around to look. The little Dr. Grey wraps her arms around him and kisses him so deeply. I can't help but smile at that. I sigh and look back at Steph. She's busy touching my stomach and you know what? I don't care. She can touch it. Aubree's okay though. She's been moving ever since I threw the phone at Izzie. I've felt her move a lot.

"JO! STEPH!" Leah, Heather and Shane all rush over to us. I'm enveloped in a hug by Heather and I can't lie…it feels good. I'm so glad that they're okay, you know? I'm glad they're okay. "…Dr. Shepherd was shot." Leah starts catching us up. "Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Hunt… Dr. Percy died…ooh, and that skinny one named Reed? She's dead too… Dr. Yang and Dr. Grey are still in OR 1 and 2 working on Shepherd and Hunt. The shooter's still inside…"

"The shooter was Gary Clark…you remember hearing about him?" Shane explains too. "Remember how the chief unplugged his wife? He came back for revenge." Shane moves my hair out of my face. "…Oh, how's Karev?"

"He's gonna be okay." Steph answers for me. "Jo's awesome you guys." She lays her head on my chest and I half smile again and put my head against hers.

If I'm so awesome, how come I don't feel awesome?


	52. Losing

It's really sunny today, but the way. I just find that weird. Any other day, it's raining it's ass off in Seattle. But today—of all days—it's bright and sunny and kind of hot with a little bit of wind here and there. The day that the angels in the sky really need to cry, it's sunny. The weather here really is ass backwards sometimes. I look up at the sky and squint my eyes to shield them from the sun. Or maybe I'm just finding the sunshine weird because I've spent the last couple hours inside a dark conference room, watching him bleed to death. A slight breeze comes and blows against my face. The parts of my hair that aren't stiff with blood blow in the wind and the breeze just feels good. For the last few hours, I've been nothing but hot. My best friend came into the locker room covered in blood and traumatized and I thought something bad happened to her. That made me freakishly hot. She took me to the room where this man that I love was bleeding to death, and I saw him lying there on the conference room table with blood just pouring out of his chest and that made me so hot that I fainted. The breeze feels really good, for those reasons.

I stop looking up at the sky and look out in the parking lot at the action happening around me. About twenty different ambulance trucks are parked in the parking lot with their backs open to help those of us that aren't too severe, like me for example. Off in the distance, I see Dr. Robbins and Dr. Torres talking to each other. Leah's on the phone with someone, screaming. Heather's talking to her mother I think and Dr. Bailey is talking to a police officer. I also see a paramedic wheeling a gurney with April on it but not because she was shot. Jackson's standing close beside her, walking along with the gurney and April has a white bundle of blankets in her arms. I start to smile at that but I turn away. I just always thought that me and Alex and Aubree would be like them. A picture perfect little family that wasn't really perfect but had everything figured out. I thought that'd be us. I guess I was wrong. I guess I'd better find a single mother to idolize now. Since it's too painful to watch Dr. Kepner and Dr. Avery and their perfect little bundle of joy together, I look back down at what's happening to me.

"Just a minor elbow lac…I'll clean it up and you can be on your way." The doctor that's looking at the brush burn on my elbow gives me a friendly smile and grabs a pair of gloves from the box on the floor next to the part of the truck I'm sitting in. He's wearing bright green scrubs and he has perfect blond hair. He's very good looking…and I'm newly single, I think. I'd totally ask him out on a date if I wasn't covered in blood and looking like shit right now and if I wasn't, you know…pregnant. "And the ankle injury you mentioned…do you believe it's serious enough for me to do a portable x-ray?" I shake my head. My ankle isn't broken. I wouldn't be able to walk on it if it was. He shoves gloves on his hands and twists my elbow so he can see my brush burn. "You said you think you heard a snap, but it wasn't unbearable to the point you couldn't walk on it. I could just wrap it up for you. I don't think it's anything serious…just rest it and ice it. Keep it elevated." He dabs the blood on my elbow with a cotton swab. I nod my head, agreeing with his treatment plan. I guess Seattle Presbyterian's emergency room is too full from traumas and casualties of the people that have been shot, because some of the emergency room physician assistants from Seattle Pres are just taking care of the minor wounds here on the scene.

I've been out here for about an hour or so. The shooter's out now, but the police are taking pictures of everything inside for evidence or whatever. I think I heard someone mention that the shooter turned the gun on himself but I don't know how true that is. I know he's dead because I saw them bringing his body out and he was handcuffed to a gurney but whether or not he shot himself is beyond me. Part of me wants to believe that the SWAT team did their job and took him down, you know? I think I heard Dr. Webber talking with the police and saying that they're shutting the hospital down for a week or something like that so everything can be cleaned up, put back in order and new security systems can be installed. I also think they want to give the doctors time to recover but you know, I'm just an intern and I don't know what I'm talking about. I look over towards Steph. She's talking to Chief Hunt about something and they're too far away from me for me to read their lips. Chief Hunt has a bandage on his left arm because he was shot. He seems okay though. I'm glad for that. I sigh and look back down at what the doctor taking care of me is doing on my elbow. He's wrapping some gauze around it. "All this blood isn't yours, is it?" He's referring to the blood all over my scrubs. I shake my head and tuck my hair behind my ear. He takes his hands off my arm and steps away. "All done." He smiles at me. "I'll…see you around, Dr. Wilson." He's definitely hitting on me…which turns me off.

I mean, I have blood all over me. I don't look good right now and I'm so fucked up plus, I really have to pee. Why is he hitting on me now? He doesn't mean it. He can't possibly think I'm cute. Whatever, it's not like I can date him anyway. I'm not really into dating anymore honestly. "It's Jo…" I tell him. He cleaned up my wound and he's being polite by hitting on me even though I look like the purest form of shit right now. I guess he can at least call me by my first name. He smiles at me when I tell him my name. I don't want him to ask me out because I don't want to have to let him down when I say no. "Thank you." I mutter and help myself down from the back of the ambulance truck I was sitting in.

As soon as I step down on the ground, I feel a flutter move from my side near my ribcage, down towards my waistline. It's like Aubree's just reminding me that she's there. It's like she's saying "hey mother, no dating 'cause you're pregnant with me." I just roll my eyes at her movement. _Now's not the time to move around, Aub. I'm not in the mood. _I fold my arms over my stomach and aimlessly walk towards Steph and Chief Hunt. I want to go the hell home. I don't want to sit around here anymore. Leah's fine, Heather's fine, Shane's fine, Steph's a little messed up but she's okay, I'm a little banged up but I'm okay. Alex and Izzie were taken to Seattle Pres about an hour ago and I have no doubt in my mind that he's okay now. I'm just ready to go home. I want to take a shower and go to sleep, that's all. I don't want to do anything else but that. "Let's go home." I put my hand on Steph's shoulder and squeeze, just to let her know that I'm here for her.

"I'm going home, Jo." Steph's voice is still so incredibly worn down and beaten. It's so strange for me to see her act this way. Steph's usually the sane one out of all of us. She's usually so calm and so strong for everyone but she's beaten down and weak and she's so…messed up over all of this, I can tell. Even though I'm still bloody, I put my hand against her cheek and force her head on my shoulder. She won't mind laying on me while I'm bloody. It's not like either one of us have showered yet. She puts her arm around my waist in a side hug. "I'm going home, Jo." She repeats herself. She doesn't mean home as in back to our apartment, does she? I look down at her. She nods her head. "I'm going home…"

"…But you're coming back, aren't you?" Surprisingly, I'm okay. I'm thinking fine, I'm thinking clear. I know my name is Jo Wilson, I know I had to put a chest tube in the man I love, I know the man I love doesn't love me back and I know I'm pregnant with a little girl I'm calling Aubree. I'm in my perfect state of mind…but everyone else around me seems so off. Am I missing something? "You're not staying there. You're coming back, right?" But if there's one thing that can set me off, it's the thought of Steph leaving me. I can't be here without Steph. I already lost Alex, am I really gonna lose her too? She can't leave me. "How long are you staying for?"

"I don't know." She says. Her voice has no emotion in it. It's like she's talking just for the sake of talking. She has no emotion and nothing she's saying is registering in her own brain. "…But you're coming with me." She says again in the same lifeless tone. "We're getting out of here…Jo, we're leaving. We're going home. I'm going home. Someone just shot up the hospital, Jo…we can't stay here." She's starting to freak me out. "I'm going home…are you coming?"

"..I…" I started to tell her that I can't leave Alex, but what does he need me for? He doesn't even want me. "Yeah." I nod my head. "Yeah, okay…I'll come." At least if I go back to the Edwards', I'll have a safe place to sleep for a few nights. Not that I don't feel safe back at my apartment or anything, I just think I'd feel even safer if I had Steph in the apartment with me and she's dead set on going home so it looks like I'm going to Olympia with her. The Edwards' house isn't so bad. It's not bad at all, actually. I'll have a nice place to lay my head at night, I'll have a few meals to eat and it's a good place for me and for Aubree to rest. "We have to…" I just lost my train of thought. I swallow my spit and pull it together. "We have to go home first. I have to… grab clothes…and my…pills." I run my hand through my ponytail. "I need my pills, Steph. I can't just skip them for a few days."

"…Okay, come on." Just like the Steph I'm used to, she pulls her shit together and holds my hand. I should be worrying about a plethora of other things—like how Alex is doing, if he's stable, if they were able to replace ALL of his lost blood. I should be worrying if that fall I took hurt my baby in any way. I fell straight on my stomach. I don't think it hurt her because she has been moving around, but still. I have a shitload of other things I could be worrying about, yet all I can think about as Steph is dragging me through the parking lot is if I have anything in my locker that I'd like to run back inside and get. I keep my hand inside Steph's and start picking up my own weight. My ankle still hurts but I walk over to Steph's silver Mercedes. I pull on the passenger's side door and get inside. I'm not really worried about getting blood on her seats because the blood on both of us is dry. So dry in fact, that my scrubs are stiff. I really just want to take a shower. I want to get all of Alex's blood off me. It's quiet in the car with the exception of the gentle hum of her car's engine. I roll down the window because I need some air. I'm not feeling so hot.

I just lay my head back against the headrest on the seat and close my eyes. I just need to rest for a second. Just a second and I'll be fine. Very discreetly, I slide my hand up underneath my stiff scrub top and touch my bare belly. Just to be sure that Aubree's okay, I push just above my bellybutton so hard that I hurt myself, but I do make Aubree move. She moves from my lower stomach to my ribcage. Okay, she's fine. I just really need to rest. I open my eyes up and look out the window. Steph's driving away from the hospital now…we just exited the parking lot. "…He didn't even wanna see me." I whisper to myself. "…He didn't even wanna see me, Steph." I look over at her while she's driving. "…He wanted her…not me." So maybe I'm not as okay as I thought I was. "…He was dying, Steph. He was dying…and he wanted her…instead of me."

"I know." Steph just barely opens her mouth to say that. Her tone is so low and monotonous that I could hardly even hear her. "I know, Jo…" Her grip on the steering wheel tightens and I notice that she's starting to breathe really fast. "…Someone shot up the hospital, Jo. PEOPLE DIED…" She's losing it. And I can't even help her because I'm losing it too.

"She sat on her ass….and did NOTHING…while I….saved him." She did nothing. She sat there and held his hand and she kissed on my baby while he was dying. She didn't even try to save him. She just sat there. I was the one that ran out. I ran out to get a chest tube. The shooter could've killed me but I didn't care. Alex needed a chest tube and I went and got it. I did that. She didn't do anything. And she sat there and cried while I put his chest tube in. He screamed… "…She didn't do anything and he wants her…" I'll never be able to get the sound of his screaming, his moaning in pain…out of my head. I'll forever remember that sound. He SCREAMED in pain…pain that I caused him. But she still did NOTHING. I cut him open. I put his chest tube in. I wanted to go to the blood bank to get him something. She didn't even want to get up and get it for him. But somehow, he…wants her. I'm so confused…

"A hospital is supposed to be the safest place in the world." She whispers to me.

I reach up and scratch my head. I'm genuinely confused. How can I love him so much but he doesn't give a shit about me? I love him so much. I love him…so much that I thought I was gonna lose him and I wouldn't let go. I wouldn't let him go. I…I acted a fucking fool because I thought I was gonna lose him. Yet, she's in the hospital with him. She's the one at his bedside because SHE'S the one that he wants. But I just…lost it. I lost it because I'm so in love with him. I didn't want to let him go but she was okay with it. Was my whole relationship a lie? I am just a pawn to get over her. I really am. And he's not over her. He doesn't love me. He never did. I'm so confused…. How does that happen? How do I love someone so much, how do I risk my life for someone, how do I find the strength in myself to save someone's life…but he doesn't even want me back?

I graze my cell phone in my pocket with my thumb and pluck it out. There's blood all over the screen but I can make out the picture and stuff on it. I know that I'm gonna check this phone and there's not gonna be a damn thing waiting for me. I know all of this. But there's this little spot…very tiny spot…but there's this spot in the back of my mind that hopes to god that maybe…JUST MAYBE…something is waiting for me. I unlock my phone and hold it up to my face. A tear drips down on the screen, knocking the dried blood loose and making it wet again. I ignore it and tap on my "messages" icon. And the last text message I sent pops up.

**iMessage**

**Saturday, October 11, 2014**

**9:04 a.m.**

**Me: **baby, do you know why we're on lockdown? all the interns are freaking out and i kinda am too. just text me back and let me know that you're safe.

And he never texted back. No, when I sent that, he was probably pushing her out of the way to make sure she didn't get hit by a bullet. He never texted me back. He was busy saving her life. He never even texted me back.

**X X X **

"Jo, what are you doing?" Steph's throwing a bunch of her clothes in a duffel bag. She's not even planning anything out, she's just throwing things in the bag. She doesn't know if she's got enough pairs of underwear to last, she doesn't know if she packed a bra. She's just tossing any articles of clothing into her bag and she doesn't care. Me? I already planned stuff out. I packed ten pairs of underwear and three bras and socks and pajamas and shirts and pants. I'm in the bathroom now, running water for my shower before I undress to take that shower. I hear the clatter of her footsteps, suggesting that she's running towards where I am. She pops in the doorway of the bathroom just as I start to untie the strings on my pants. "No, come on…let's go." She sounds frantic. "Come on! We have to leave!"

"I'm taking a shower…" I stop untying my pants and look at her. She's still in her bloody scrubs and she hasn't done anything to herself. I always get in the shower before she does. I get in first because she likes to use all the hot water and there's never anything left for me. So I go first. "Are we leaving now?" I wrinkle my brow and walk over to the shower to stop the water if she says yes. "I thought we were taking showers first…" No offense, but the sooner I get Alex's blood off me, the better. I just want to forget everything that happened and I can't do that if I have half his blood volume all over my clothes and in my hair and on my skin. "I thought we were taking showers first…" I repeat myself, whispered this time.

"No, we have to leave…I wanna get the hell outta here." She's carrying a duffel bag on her shoulder. "We've got an hour drive ahead of us…we can shower at my house. I wanna get the hell out of Seattle." She sounds like she's gonna cry. Okay, she's freaking out. So I'll nix the shower. "Come on…I'll be in the car." She turns around and leaves me alone in the bathroom. Steph is FREAKING out. She wants to leave and she wants to leave NOW. She doesn't even want to clean herself up.

I lean inside the shower and turn off the water. I tie my pants back up so they won't fall and turn to leave out of the bathroom and grab my bag to go out to the car, but I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I haven't looked at myself at all today. And I hardly even recognize the girl staring back at me in the mirror. No, that's not me. This girl has red blood streaked across both her cheeks. Her mouth is clear and her forehead is too, but blood lines her cheeks and her chin. Her hair is tied up in a high side-ponytail that rests droopily on her shoulder. Her hair is darker than it should be—like her hair is wet—but it's not. Her hair is dry and sticky and hard and three shades darker than it would be if it was dry. She has blood all over her neck and her ears and when she turns her head, she can see a little bit of blood around her mouth. On her cheeks, there are a few clear spots amongst the dried blood—tear stains from when she was crying. Her eyes are baggy and purple. She seems tired. She seems beaten and emotionally drained, not like the tough, headstrong girl I spent the last 28 years and five months knowing. I'm not Jo anymore and I'm damn sure not the girl in this mirror. I'm less than Jo and that's that.

I'm sick of looking at this stranger in the mirror. I'm tired of wondering where the hell I went and when the hell she came about. I take my eyes off the girl in the mirror and shut off the bathroom light. I shut the bathroom door behind myself and bend down to pick up my packed duffel bag off the floor of my bedroom. I swipe my cell phone and my prenatal pills off the dresser and leave out through the front door. Steph already locked the door up, all I have to do is pull it shut behind myself. So I do. I sling my bag over my shoulder and carefully walk down the tiny flight of steps and over to the car. I shove my bag into the backseat and close the door. I open up the passenger's side and climb inside the car with her. I look down at my wrist, covered with blood. It's empty. I overturn my hand so it's palmside down and look at the blood crusted ring on my finger. The ring is still beautiful…what did I do with these fingers though? I replay it over and over in my head.

_Count five spaces down and two spaces across so you don't hit an artery, just like you learned on your cadaver. It's not a cadaver anymore though, it's a live human body. It's not just any human body either. It's Alex. Scalpel and cut. Deep, but not too deep. Get your hands to stop shaking. I know it's Alex but he needs a chest tube. You've done tons of these. You can do chest tubes in your sleep. Chest tubes aren't a normal intern move but you can do a chest tube. You've never done a chest tube on somebody with a bullet lodged in their chest, but you can do a chest tube. You can do a chest tube. Grab the tube and put it in the hole you cut in his chest. It's gonna hurt but you're saving his life. You love him, Jo. Remember that. He doesn't love you but you love him and what are you gonna do if he dies? Focus, Jo. You can give him a chest tube._

I stop looking at my ring and my bloody hand to stop thinking about the shit that happened today. She has to be taking care of him, though. She left him. She left him to bleed so she could go get help. I understand that he needed help from a real surgeon, but still…she shouldn't have left him. She shouldn't have left him. He could've coded or something and she wasn't there to perform CPR. She has to take care of him now. She has to be there for him and she has to sing to him and she has to scratch his scalp and he's recovering from a GUN SHOT WOUND to his fucking chest. She better take care of him. I did NOT go through all of that…I didn't shove a tube in his chest…I didn't cause him all that pain…I didn't faint and listen to him cry out for another woman for NOTHING. She better take care of my baby and I mean that shit. I just…

I clear my throat. "…Can you take me to Seattle Pres?" My jaw starts trembling out of nowhere and my eyes start to burn because the wetness of my tears are making the blood on my eyelashes fall into my eyeballs and it burns. "Please, Steph." I swallow a lump in my throat. "Take me to Seattle Pres…"

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

_I walk around in a dark room. A room so dark I can't even see anything around me. Where the hell am I? I try to ask that question aloud but nothing comes out of my mouth. So I don't know where I am…and I don't know how I go there. So I sit down on what the floor would be like because my chest hurts. My chest hurts and I feel dizzy and lightheaded and I need to sit down. So I cross my legs in preparation to sit down but I can't. Because I sit down on a floor that's not really there and I start to fall, ass first. Ever have that dream when you're falling? When you're falling and you feel yourself falling but you can't wake yourself up. So you're just falling and falling but before you hit the ground, somehow you wake up. This is not that dream. I'm falling and yeah, I'm scared but I can't scream. And I'm not falling down to pavement below, either. I'm falling into a light. But I land. And I land somewhere that's bright. Somewhere with light. And I don't hurt myself when I land._

_I stand up on something that I can't feel beneath my feet, but it has to be there because I'm standing on it. So I crane my neck and look down at where I'm standing. Nothing's below me, just air. But there's blood. Everything's white except for the blood that's pouring out of a tiny hole in my chest. "Where the hell am I?" I ask myself, but unlike the dark room I was in before I started falling, I can actually speak. Nothing's below me. Just blood and air. I put my hand over my wound, but when I pull my hand back, there's no blood. And my chest doesn't hurt anymore. I have to say, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had. I wanna wake up, so I pinch myself. Nothing. Sighing, I walk over to sit down on something that looks like a chair but it's fluffy. The worst I can do is fall again, I guess._

_I approach the chair so I can sit down and wait out the dream until my body decides to wake up, but when I get closer to the chair, I see something on it. Someone on it, rather. Someone that's no bigger than a 2 liter bottle of soda. Someone so beautiful that it could only be one person and one person only. And maybe this dream isn't so bad. Maybe this dream is beautiful. Maybe I don't want to wake up. I get closer to the chair and just stare, trying to confirm who I'm looking at. She has slightly golden, pale white skin and she's laying on her stomach, so I can see that she has chubby little fat rolls in her back. She's sleeping so I don't want to wake her. Thick, fluffy hair lines the top of her head that's a shade of brown so dark that it could be mistaken as black. But it's so bright where we are that I can tell it's dark brown. And just like someone else I know, she has three beauty marks all over her back. One in the middle of her back, one on her shoulder blade and one buried in the indentation of her roll of fat. A small, white diaper covers her butt but her feet are curled up underneath of her. Her feet are tiny. She's sleeping like an angel. I'm surprised there aren't wings on her back. Her hands are crossed underneath her chin and she has lips so full that remind me again, of someone else's lips. The curvature of her nose resembles mine and the circles that form her eyes are mine as well. But her hairline that starts on her forehead, the fact that she has a beauty mark beside her mouth and the fact that I can hear slight little hums of "ehh" and "hmmm" while she's sleeping all match someone else. I don't know who though. They're familiar, but I don't know who these features belong to. And I'm trying to put my finger on it, but I don't know who this beautiful little girl is. I want to pick her up though. Her beauty is just… I reach down to take her into my arms and her eyes flutter open. Her eyes are so light brown…pretty. Pretty brown eyes. I wrap my hands around her torso and I'm whisked away again._

"Alex…" A different voice calls my name. This voice is beautiful as well, but nothing like my angel's voice. I manage to blink my eyes, but everything's blurry. All I see is a mess of white and bright light and that's all. White and bright light and nothing else and now it's dark again. When I pictured heaven, I did picture white clouds and stuff like that. And shocking that all I see is white and bright light. I'm dead, aren't I? "Alex." The different voice is directly in my ear, calling my name as softly as possible. I strain my facial muscles to open my eyes again but still, all I see is a mess of bright white light. I close my eyes again though.

"_I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways…maybe just the touch of a hand…but me I fall in love with you every single day and I just wanna tell you I am…" I have hands on my face. I recognize the feeling of these hands and the sound of that voice. The hands are so soft and slender and very little with the feeling of cool metal on the right ring finger, just to confirm whose hands are holding my face. And that voice…the voice I'd love to hear in my sleep. So soft and so pretty and so angelic. Soft lips touch my cheek. I think I died and oddly enough, I'm okay with that. Or maybe this is all one big dream. I got shot yeah, the pain in my chest is confirmation of that. But I had a dream that a brunette angel was singing to me while I died. So maybe this was all just a dream. This angel that took me to heaven or my hell or whatever exists was so beautiful. She had the prettiest, longest, fullest brunette hair and the softest lips and the most sensual voice. She was so beautiful. And she was singing to me. What a way to die. What a way to die…_

I keep my eyes open for a while and notice that things are coming into focus. White ceiling tiles housing white lights. "Oh thank god…thank god." A hand squeezes mine and lips crash down on mine. Blonde hair comes into focus and I try to inhale her scent but I can't. Something's in my nose. Why the hell is there a tube in my nose? I open my mouth to ask why there's a tube in my nose but there's one in my mouth as well. I start coughing and I weakly bring my hands up to take this damn tube out of here. Get this tube out of my mouth. "Wait baby, wait…" She calms me down and rushes out the room. "He's fighting his tube! He can breathe on his own!" She comes back over to me and pulls tape off my cheeks.

Izzie…what's she doing here? What the hell is Iz doing here? She gently tugs the tube from down my throat and gets it out of my mouth. My muscles spasm in my arm and I involuntarily close my hand. There's something in my hand though. Weakly, I turn my head to look and see what's in my hand. Damn, my head hurts. My head is banging. I give my eyes a moment to adjust so something can come into focus. My eyes focus on something shiny and sliver and pink. Inside the pink part, something is moving…ticking. A watch. Jo's watch. Jo… "Where's…Jo?" My throat is burning too. I need water or something. No, I need Jo. Where's Jo? Where is Jo with my baby? She should be here…why is Izzie here and not Jo? "Jo…"

"Alex…" Izzie kisses me on my lips. "Baby, you were shot…" She's hovering over me, tears rushing down her face and stroking my hair. No…why is she kissing me instead of Jo?! Where is JO?! You know…Jo. Short little thing with long brunette hair, kinda skinny with a little baby bump? Jo. Not Izzie but JO. Where's JO? "You lost a lot of blood…you almost died on me…" Izzie kisses my lips again. Stop kissing me! I want JO. She holds my hand and kisses me some more. "I'm so glad you're okay…"

"…Where's Jo?" I don't know if she's able to make out what I just said but I know what I said. I asked where JO is and I want to know. Where's my Jo and where is my Aubree? Why isn't she here? This isn't like Jo. Jo's always here. Jo should be here. She knows I got shot, doesn't she? If I know I got shot, she should know. I remember everything. I remember going up to Derm to tell Iz to shut her damn mouth. I remember walking down the steps and hearing Iz try to tell some bastard that he wasn't supposed to be walking around. And then the same bastard tried to shoot her. I pushed Iz out of the way and he shot me instead. I remember that. Now please, where is JO? Her watch is in my hand… she never takes this watch off. She never takes it off… oh my god. Don't tell me Jo got shot too. Don't tell me she got shot and she's dead. Don't tell me that she died. She was having my baby. Please don't tell me she died… "Jo…"

"She left you, Alex." Iz keeps stroking my hair. "She didn't even come here with you. She didn't ride in the back of the truck, I did. I rode in the truck with you…she didn't." She kisses my lips and I don't want her to do that. I don't want her to kiss me. Don't kiss me. I want Jo to kiss me. I want Jo. Where's Jo? She didn't leave me. She wouldn't leave me. "…You wanted me, baby." She's crying all hard and I don't understand why. I was shot. I was shot, I lost consciousness, that was it. Nothing else happened. Why is she crying? I'm alive, I feel well. Stop crying and find me my Jo. "You were dying…and you called me. You asked me not to leave…and I'm not leaving. I'm right here."

"…No." I've gotta stop talking. My throat hurts too bad to be talking. But I really think Iz is lying to me, you know? There's no way I called out for her. And I wasn't dying. I'm fine. I feel perfect, I remember EVERYTHING. I didn't call out to Izzie, I would know if I did. She's just looking for any reason to keep Jo from me and I need Jo. She wants me. She wants me and she'd do anything to keep Jo from me. She's lying. Jo would never leave me and I didn't call out to her. Iz is a liar. "Find Jo…" I had a dream that this angel was singing to me and taking me away. I think that angel might've been my Jo. If I see Jo in my dreams, then I wanna sleep. I want Jo. I don't want Iz, I don't want anyone else but Jo and my daughter. I feel tears seeping out of my eyes and trickling back to my ears. I'm not in any physical pain. I don't feel where I got shot at and that's good. But my heart… hurts so bad. I want Jo. I just close my eyes so I can try to fall asleep. I can see Jo in my dreams and maybe when I wake up, she'll actually be here.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"Alex Karev." The receptionist is looking at me like I just stepped out of a horror movie. I guess the look is warranted though, I probably do look like I stepped out of a horror movie. I'm bloody. "I'm…I'm one of the doctors…" I can't talk without my hands shaking. I think I'm starting to lose it. I was keeping it together for so long. I was okay for so long. I was okay, I was doing fine, everyone else was freaking out. But I'm losing my cool. I just need to see Alex and I don't need this woman looking at me like I'm gonna shoot up the fucking hospital. "From…From Seattle Grace Mercy West… I'm one of the doctor…s. J..Jo. Jo…Jo Wilson." I'm shaking so bad. "I just need to see him… can you…just tell me what room he's in?" I'm feeling lightheaded and woozy and I just need to see Alex. I don't know why I'm freaking out, I just am.

"ICU room 403…" The woman shakes her head at me. I nod my head for the sake of not speaking again and grab ahold of the desk so I can walk with support. Steph wanted to stay in the car while I went to go visit Alex so I let her. She freaked out about going into another hospital and I understood. She was so scared to come in here and I think I understand how she felt now because I'm freaking out just being in here, I think. I let go of the desk and make my way to an elevator. I look at the map to see where their ICU is. Third floor. With shaky hands, I push the button to call the elevator and just wait. People keep staring at me but I don't care. I'm bloody who cares?

I just wanna go make sure Alex is okay. "Ughhh…" I can't help but moan and double over in pain. This sharp, shooting pain in my vagina…I hold my womanhood and limp onto the elevator. It's empty, thank god. I push the number "3" to get on the third floor and hold onto the railing going around the elevator. Pain again. "Oooh…" What's happening to me? What's happening… The elevator jolts upward and I make my way towards the front so I can get off the elevator. The pain shoots down from my stomach and directly into my crotch. "Ughh!" I squeeze my legs closed tight and hold my crotch. I take a deep breath and try so hard to breathe but I can't. "…Aubree, you have to stay in there…" I mouth to her. I really think she's trying to come. I think she's trying to come out of me right now and she can't. She can't survive outside of me yet. "Not yet, peanut… not yet." The elevator door opens up and I walk upright out of it. Every step I take is another pain in my vagina but I'm bearing with it. "Stay in there…we're gonna go see daddy, okay? Stay in there…" I keep mouthing to her. I feel something wet between my legs. "No Aub…mommy…needs you to stay…" Room 400…room 401… The more I walk, I just feel something seeping out of me. I can't tell if it's blood because I'm covered in it. "You…are so…stubborn. You're like your dad…" I stop walking because this pain that just hit me is too severe. "Oh goddddd…." I hold my crotch tight. "Or you're like me…" Holding onto the wall, I keep walking. Room 402…403. I turn the corner and look through the window to make sure it's the right room.

Alex is lying in the hospital bed all cleaned up with a tube in his nose and Izzie is sitting by his bed, stroking his arm. I push the door to the side and slide it open, still hunched over in pain. Izzie's face perks up as she looks at me. She wrinkles her brow and looks at me. "What are you doing here?" She asks.

"…Is he okay?" I manage to choke out through my pain. Between my legs is so wet and disgusting. I know I must look strange, hunched over in pain, holding my vagina. "I just…came to make sure…"

"He's fine, he was awake a little while ago and he still has some morphine in his system." She just keeps looking at me. "What's wrong with you?"

"I…think I'm going…into labor." I grab onto the rail of Alex's bed and drag myself over to his bedside but I can't make it. "Uhhh…" I can't breathe though these pains. Are these contractions? "H…how are his…vitals? Are his COAGS stable?"

"…He's alright." She stands up. "How far along are you? You're not pregnant enough to go into labor." She puts her arm around me and that shocks the hell out of me. "Jo, what's the matter with you?"

"I don't need your help…I need to know if he's okay… I just came to see if he was okay enough to—OWWWW!" I can't even stand up anymore. I find myself collapsing on the floor but Izzie catches me, which again, shocks me. "You don't have…to help me…"

"Shut up and quit bitching." She helps me down on the floor and grabs the drawstrings of my pants. "How far are along are you?"

"…I'm…almost seventeen weeks." I smack her hands away. "Stop…okay? I'm fine. I don't want you to do this…"

"You might be having a miscarriage, you seriously don't want my help?" She unties my pants and looks down them. "…You're not bleeding." She sticks her hand down my pants and literally, rubs my crotch. She takes her hand out of my pants and looks at it. Her hand is clean. "It's not blood, you're not miscarrying. Smells like you're losing amniotic fluid though…" She lies me down gently on the floor. "Just stay right here and try not to move…" She runs out to the hallway. "I need a wheelchair in here and somebody needs to page me an obstetrician!"

Why is she helping me? We hate each other. She comes back over to me and touches my stomach. "Why are you helping me?" I ask her. I'm just curious.

"…I hate you, your baby never did anything to me." She gets really smart with me and pulls up my shirt. "And this is Alex's baby. If I'm gonna be with him…I gotta learn to love you guys' kid too. And it'll kill him if that baby dies." She opens up my pants again and looks down them. "Plus, you saved his life… I guess I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything." I struggle to pick myself up off the ground. It hurts so bad.

"You're just a little girl, Jo…" She shakes her head. "You don't know what you're doing here. You're not even in your 30s yet." She holds my hand and helps me stand up so I can get into the wheelchair they brought in here for me. "…Do you have anybody you want me to call? Your…mother or whatever?"

"…I don't have family." I shake my head. "…And for what it's worth, you can have him." I sniff. "Tell him I said I'm done. I'll come talk to him…when I'm all fixed up and stuff but if he wakes up before then, just tell him what I said… And can you...go out to the...silver Mercedes in the parking lot...and get my friend?"

"I will."


	53. Done

"_Police officials say that at approximately 7:45 a.m. this morning, 63-year old Gary Clark entered Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital with a loaded 9mm pistol in tow and more than three extra rounds of ammunition. Investigators contend that Mr. Clark entered through the facility's main entrance and continued on inside, in pursuit of the chief of surgery. A potential motive for the shooting has not yet been confirmed, but officials suspect the death of Clark's wife, Allison, could play a possible part. An official fatality count has not been released yet, but police officials have disclosed that more than a dozen casualties have been reported and more than ten wounded victims are being treated at Seattle Presbyterian Hospital. Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital remained in lockdown for more than two and a half hours while law officials attempted to negotiate with the shooter and clear the premises. Floor by floor, the hospital was liberated and by about 10:30 this morning, every floor was declared clear by officials. At approximately 9:43 a.m., almost exactly two hours after the mass shooting began, a male doctor who shall remain nameless, reported that Mr. Clark had successfully shot the chief of surgery and then turned the gun on himself. We will continue to follow this story as new developments occur."_

Steph's mom turns off the television set and shakes her head, tears rolling down her cheeks and ricocheting down onto her arms and the couch. I close my eyes to try and get the images of the blood infested hallways and the police lines just shown on the newscast out of my head. It's so strange to think that I was in that. Have you ever watched a newscast about something like this? Like when a college shooting occurs, or when a school shooting happens or when some mass bomb explosion occurs? You watch the newscast and think about how terrible it must be for the people involved and you thank the high heavens that you're safe. I've watched many newscasts about unfortunate individuals in unfortunate situations. It's crazy to think I was in that unfortunate situation, though. I walked those bloody hallways. I listened to the gunshots. I heard people scream. If I looked close enough, I could see parts of the hospital I recognized in the background. Dr. Webber, one of my teachers, was talking to the newscaster. That's so surreal. And scarier than the fact that I was in that are the thoughts and images replaying in my head. Just the images of how Steph's family reacted when they saw us—saw me.

"_Jo, get out of the car…come on. We're here." Steph punches and slaps at my arm. I've fallen asleep on the car ride here and she's waking me up. I don't know how I managed to fall asleep but I did. My entire body just feels like I've ran a marathon. I have a sore spot on my elbow where I got a brush burn, my calf muscles hurt from running so vigorously to get that chest tube to Alex and my ankle is throbbing. The only relief I've been offered thus far is the fact that I'm not having sharp pains in my abdomen anymore. But I do have a sore spot right above my vagina where the obstetrician at Seattle Pres gave me an amnioinfusion. And the bend in my arm is sore from her giving me an IV as well. I lost a little bit of my amniotic fluid but it was only a little bit and it was easily replaced. Aubree's okay. "Jo, come on." Steph slaps my arm again. I shake my head to clear my foggy mind and open up the door._

"Here, honey." Steph's mom hands me a very large blanket. I'm lying on Steph's loveseat and my entire body feels like it's shutting down. I can't even muster up enough strength to thank her. I can't even properly take the blanket off her. But Steph's mom has been really understanding and so very nice, so she bends down and drapes the blanket over my body. I think I'm gonna fall asleep here. Mrs. Edwards already changed Steph's bedsheets and got extra pillows in her room for us to sleep in her bed but I don't think I can get back up from this couch. I sorely blink my eyes and look over at Steph. She's lifelessly lying on the couch with a blanket over her body as well. She doesn't have her glasses on, but her eyes are open. She's just staring at something. "…I'll go fix you girls a plate uh dinner…I'll be right back." Her voice is so soft, like she's trying to keep from alarming either of us. Strangely enough, this is the only place in the world I want to be. When I think of a safe place, I think of the Edwards house. And I think of the big bowl of chili her mom made for me to eat the first time I was here and I think of this as my safe haven. And the only place in the world I'd rather be other than here is in Alex's arms…but this is a good settler. I close my eyes again.

_I drag my heavy duffel bag up the steps to Steph's front porch and wait patiently behind her. I'm so tired of being bloody. I'm so tired of being dirty. I'm so tired of crying. But most of all, I'm tired of being tired. I can rest here though. Me and Steph can both rest here. Steph doesn't have the strength to fumble around on her keychain to find her house key so she just rings the doorbell. As a direct indication that she's tired, she puts her head against the stone wall of the outside of her house and closes her eyes. Her front door roars and creaks as it opens and her younger brother peeks around the door like he's afraid of what he might see. I see a look of relief wash over his face and horror at the same time as he turns around and yells, "MOM!" as he opens up the door for the both of us. Her brother takes both my bag and Steph's bag off us and drags them in the house for us. "MOM!"_

_The front door shuts and locks behind the both of us and like she was trained to do, Steph immediately kicks off her bloody shoes before she steps onto the carpet. I follow her lead and take my shoes off as well. Even my socks are bloody but the blood is dry so it won't get everywhere. Mrs. Edwards comes running into the foyer where we're standing. The look on her face says it all…she was expecting to get a police officer telling her that her daughter was dead. Surely she saw about the shooting on the news already. And Steph mentioned earlier in the car that her phone's battery was shot from trying to call her mother earlier this morning so if her mom was trying to call her, she probably thought she was dead. And she did. She thought that Steph was dead. Why else would she bust out in tears over seeing her standing in her house? "Stephanie!" She screams and pulls Steph into a tight, warm, "I'm glad to see you" kind of hug. Steph can't even hug her back._

_I just stand with my back against the wall for support. I feel like I'm gonna collapse and sleep. I can't even function right. I shut my eyes and rest my head back against the wall. "And Jo!" My eyes snap open just as she screams out my name as well. She's happy to see me? Why? She doesn't even know me, hardly. And to prove that she's happy to see me, she grabs my tired little body and gives me a hug so tight that I can't breathe. "Oh…my girls." She's crying so hard. I just look into her eyes and see that she's genuine when she's hugging me. She rubs my bloody cheek and holds me like I'm her own daughter…like I'd hold Aubree if she just came to see me a bloodied mess. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you two…"_

I pull the blanket her mom gave me up to my chin and just take the moment to feel safe. For the first time today, I don't feel like I'm in any danger. I feel like I can just breathe. I feel like I can float and I'm safe. And I'm not thinking about Alex. I'm not thinking about the fact that he's okay thanks to my chest tube. I'm not thinking about the fact that he was lucid for a few moments before they sedated him again. I'm not thinking about the fact that I didn't get the chance to see him and talk to him and properly tell him I wanted an out on her relationship. I was too busy getting an amnioinfusion and IV fluids in my arm to talk to him. I missed his lucid moments. And when I was okay enough to go see him, he was sedated again but Izzie was taking okay care of him. She was making sure he was stable and I appreciated that. I had to leave him because Steph wanted to get here before dark. She knew her mom would be worried and she didn't want to keep her mom scared for too long and I understood that. So I couldn't just wait around for Alex to be lucid again. I had to leave him. I inhale through my nose and close my eyes before I exhale.

_I never really realized how much I take hot showers for granted, you know. Back when I first lived in my shitty apartment when I moved to Washington, I never took hot showers for granted. I knew that hot water was a blessing and having come from living in my car as a teenager, I knew that hot showers had the potential to be very far and few between. But somehow, I've been living in the apartment with Steph long enough to take the frequent hot water for granted. So now, as I'm standing here underneath the torrential downpour of water so hot that my skin burns, I'm making it a point to be thankful. I rest my head against the sliding glass door of the shower and just let the water hit my back. My skin is pale white again, which is kind of a big deal. My skin hasn't been white in hours; it's been various shades of red. I turn around and cup my hands full of water to splash it on my face. I reach forward when I'm done and shut off the shower spray. God, that felt really good._

_I wrap the big, white fluffy towel Steph's mom set out for me around my body and sit down on the back of the toilet seat. My hair is dripping all down my back but I don't care. The water dripping down my back is a nice substitute for the blood that's been dripping down my back for the last several hours. Is it bad that the only thing that's bothering me right now is the fact that I can't get his voice out of my head? I'm not bothered by the fact that I can't bear weight on my ankle for too long. I'm not bothered by the fact that I just had to get a nine inch needle stuck in my stomach to give Aubree more fluids. I'm not bothered by the fact that I could've lost my child today and the reason I didn't is because the woman I spent the day trying to kill helped me. No, none of those things bother me. What bothers me is the fact that I can't get Alex's voice—his screams, his moans in pain, his tear-filled voice—out of my head. That's what bothers me._

When I open my eyes again, I'm met with the sight of Steph's mother and her brother bringing us food. Steph's mom puts down a bowl of something on the coffee table in front of me then walks across the distance to put a bowl down in front of Steph as well. Her brother puts down two big glasses of soda in front of us as well. I don't have much of an appetite. I'm not very hungry and I haven't been since I ate this morning. I think being emotional just took my appetite completely away. But I'm sure Aubree's hungry so I'll eat something for her. I haven't felt her move since earlier when they stuck that needle inside of me but the obstetrician at Seattle Pres told me that Aubree is in perfect health. She was in distress there for a little while because I was losing some fluid but she's fine now and I go back to see Dr. Maxwell for a checkup sometime next week. You know what I like? I like how Steph's entire family came home when they heard that she was okay. Her older brother came home, her sister came home and her dad's on his way. I think that's nice. How everyone was so worried about her. I envy that just a little bit. "How you feeling, Jo?" Steph's sister comes over to sit by me. I politely move my legs so she can have a place to sit. I just tuck them underneath of myself.

My arms are so sore. But I put my hands down flat against the couch cushions and pick myself up so I can eat whatever her mom made for dinner without aspirating it by laying down. "I'm okay…" My voice is raspy but because I'm so tired. I'm so drained. I reach forward and pick up the bowl set in front of me. It's spaghetti. I could go for spaghetti. Spaghetti's good. I just hope it doesn't make Aubree throw up. I hold the bowl of spaghetti in my lap and twist my fork around in it. I take a bite of it and let it sit in my mouth before I start to chew, just to see how Aubree's gonna react. I think she's gonna be okay with spaghetti. She doesn't like onions, sour cream and onion potato chips, baked chicken or big macs from McDonalds. Me? I like onions, I like sour cream and onion potato chips, I like baked chicken and I'll eat a big mac. But Aubree hates them and if I eat them, she will make me puke. I chew the spaghetti and swallow it.

I stifle a yawn and grab ahold of my cell phone that's resting on the coffee table as well. After I eat, I'm going to sleep and that's the end of it. I'm so tired. I push my home button on my phone and see that I have a missed call. I don't recognize the number so I don't care. It's probably a bill collector. I'm not in debt to very many people but somehow, bill collectors still feel the need to call me for some reason. They're annoying. I unlock my phone anyway and tap on my messages so I can text Steph.

**Text Message**

**Saturday, October 11, 2014**

**11:31 p.m.**

**Me: **where are we sleeping tonight? i'm so tired.

**Stephy!: **I know me too. After we eat you wanna go upstairs?

**Me: **yeah.

**X X X **

The room is pitch black, just the way I like to sleep. It's quiet as well, except for the sound of her fan blowing cool air on the both of us. I'm ready for today to be over. I'm ready to put aside all the blood that was shed today, all the tears that were cried, all the screaming that was uttered. I'm ready to just put this day behind myself once and for all. And hopefully when I wake up tomorrow, it'll be a different, less horrifying day. Steph is lying next to me already fast asleep. I could've slept on the day bed in the other corner of her room and I wouldn't have had a problem with that. The last time I was here, we didn't share a bed. I like to move around in my sleep and so does Steph, so we usually don't sleep together. But when we first got up here in her room, I tried to go sleep in the day bed. I went over to it with my pillow and I pulled back the covers but Steph freaked out and she insisted that I sleep with her. And honestly? Something inside me agreed. I should sleep with Steph. And so I laid down in the bed with her and she shut off her lights. And she turned on her fan. And she held my hand. And she fell asleep and I'm gonna do the same.

But I can't fall straight asleep, of course. My mind is just reeling and that usually means that I'm close to falling asleep. When my thoughts start rushing and I can't stop thinking, it usually means that I'm on my way to falling asleep. And my thoughts are rushing. Everything that happened today…is just flooding my brain. What happened today…I don't…I've never been so scared in my entire life. And now that I'm safe and looking back at it, I realize that that's exactly what I was. I was scared. Scared to death. I just…I went to work. I went to work today…err yesterday at this point because it's past 12:00. Anyway, I went to work. I did everything I was supposed to do and I just went to work today. And someone came to my job…he came to my job…my JOB…where I make money to live…my JOB…someone came to my job and killed people. Could've killed me. Shot. He shot up my job. And he killed people. And Alex. Alex…Alex got SHOT. He got shot. In his chest…he got shot. And he was dying. He was dying right in front of me. And the first chest tube…the FIRST chest tube I've ever put in a live human being was in Alex. I've done lots of chest tubes on my cadaver…on my DEAD body. But the first chest tube I ever put in a live human was put in Alex. And I saved his life.

_There's so much blood. He's bleeding so much. Blood doesn't bother me. I'm telling you, blood doesn't bother me. But he's bleeding so much. How is he alive if he's bleeding this much? He needs a chest tube. A chest tube will buy him some time…time that he doesn't have. I pull open the door to the conference room he's dying in and rush over to the table to get this chest tube to Dr. Sloan. Wait…where's Dr. Sloan? Where's Izzie? Where's Steph? And most of all, where's Alex? There's someone bleeding out on the table but it's not Alex. That body is too skinny to be Alex. Not that Alex is fat, he's just muscular. And the body bleeding on the table isn't muscular at all. So cautiously, I approach the table and when I identify the body bleeding out on the table, I scream…but nothing comes out of my mouth. _

"_GSW to the right chest…she's bleeding out…she doesn't have much time." Steph is hovering over the body on the table…over me. I'm on the table. I'm dying. "She needs a chest tube! Dr. Karev, can you do a chest tube?!" Steph screams at him, pushing on my chest to do compressions. I'm shirtless on the table wearing nothing but my bra. I'm bloody…blood's spilling out everywhere. "She's dying! She's coding!" I run over to the table and open up the packet that the chest tube is in. But I'm not me. I'm…Alex? I'm Alex? I'm Alex and I'm trying to save me. "…Somebody call it." Steph chokes out. "Somebody call time of death…I can't do it." She shakes her head. I start to cry…err, Alex starts to cry. Why didn't he save me? Steph looks at the watch on her wrist. "Time of death… 9:23 a.m." I'm dead? I leave my body. I'm not…Alex anymore. I can see Alex. Why didn't he save me?_

_He rushes over to another body lying on the floor. This body is taller than mine, has bigger boobs and blonde hair. She has a GSW to her chest as well. And he takes the opened chest tube packet and starts inserting it inside of her. He's giving her a chest tube. But not me. He didn't give me a chest tube. Why didn't he save me? Why did he pick her instead of me? I'm dead, he's saving her. I'm…_

I feel my body jolt and I spring up in the bed. I'm still holding Steph's hand but I'm breathing heavy. I put my hand against my chest to feel my heart beating. My heart's beating…I'm not dead. I'm not dead. Gently, I slide my hand out of Steph's hand and bring it up to my face while my other free hand is rested on my chest. I slide my thumb underneath my eyes and wipe some tears away. I was crying. But that dream. It was so vivid, so scary. So vivid, so scary. He didn't save me. He had the chest tube in his hands and he didn't save me. Why didn't he save me? And now I'm starting to wonder. Would he really let me die over her? If it came down to it, would he push me out of the way of the bullet? Or would he push her out of the way first, instead? Which one of us would he save? Her or me? Jo or Izzie? I know which one out of me or her that'd save him. I know which one of us would risk our life. I already did it.

I run my hand through my still-damp hair try to catch my breath because I'm still breathing heavy. Steph is sleeping so peacefully so I'm careful not to disturb her. I reach across my body and pick up my phone. I push the home button and it lights up. My phone's battery life is on 100% so I take it off the charger. I have another missed call from that same number but nothing else. No other text messages from him, no calls from him. Nothing. So I put my phone back down on the nightstand next to me and slide down in the bed. I'm just gonna try to go back to sleep. I've never been known to have the same dream twice so maybe my scary dream is gone. Maybe I won't dream that dream anymore...

And of course, just as I roll over and close my eyes, my phone starts buzzing so loud that it has the potential to wake up Steph. I reach over and snatch it off the dresser to see what the issue is. That weird number is calling me again. Usually when bill collectors call or when telemarketers call, all you have to do is say "not interested" and they'll leave you alone. Besides…why the hell are telemarketers calling me at fucking 1:30 in the morning? Irritated, I slide my thumb across the screen to answer it and hold it to my ear. Steph's a heavy sleeper so I know she won't wake, but I'll still be quiet. "…Hello?" I say in a voice so low that I don't sound like myself. The other end of the line is silent. "Hello?" I say again. The line is still quiet, but I hear some rustling. It's like the wind is blowing into the other end of the phone. "Hello?" I try once again for the third and final time. If I don't get an answer this time, I'm hanging up.

"Jo." I wrinkle my brow and push my phone to my ear harder so I can hear but I'm pretty sure somebody called my name. It sounds like a ghost's voice and it's really starting to freak me out. It's like a whisper but I can definitely hear that someone called my name. My heart is starting to pound again. "…Jo." Whoever it is calls my name again. It's clearer this time but still scary.

"…Who is this?" I make my own voice just a little bit louder. I'm half tempted to tell this person that they have the wrong number. The line is quiet again but I still hear that rustling noise. My mind is just racing from all the people I think this person could possibly be. Could be…my foster father. My old one, I mean. The one that raped me… and I'm scared to death that this could be him. Or maybe it's that guy from that party. The guy that tried to rape me but I hit him with a bottle. "…Hello?" I say again. "Who is this?" My voice is creaky. I'm scared but I'm trying not to let on that I'm scared.

The person on the other end of the phone coughs lightly and clears his or her throat, but makes a pained noise in the process. "…Me." I make out through the whispered voice. Is this my baby? It doesn't sound like him but that noise he just made into the phone kind of convinced me. He made that noise when I was singing to him. While he was dying on me and I was singing to him, he made something like that noise. "…Jo…you…there?"

"Alex?"

"…Yeah." He coughs again.

"What are you doing? You should be asleep… what are you doing calling me this late?" I hold my phone to my ear and slowly get out of the bed. I don't want to wake Steph up. "Alex…baby, can you hear me?" I walk to Steph's bathroom and shut the door behind myself. "Alex." His line is quiet. I just called him "baby". I didn't mean to do that. Tough habit to break though. He's been my baby for a while now. He's still my baby. Matter of fact, he'll probably always be my baby. He'll be my baby forever. But he can be my baby from a distance. I'm not staying with a man that doesn't want me. I just feel like if he really loved me and he was really over her, he wouldn't have even felt the need to call her. He used his dying breath to tell her that he wanted her. He can be my baby from a distance but I'm not staying with him.

"…Why…you didn't…answer earlier?" He groans. "Called you twice…"

"I was busy, Alex." I sit down on Steph's toilet and lean against the wall. "And I didn't recognize the number. You know I don't answer numbers I don't know." I put my hand against my belly just to support Aubree while I'm sitting. This spot right above my vagina is really sore. The obstetrician at Seattle Pres wiped my belly off with alcohol to sterilize it and she stuck a really long, nine inch needle in my stomach and she put some warm saline in the amniotic sac to replace the fluid Aubree lost. "How are you feeling?"

"No…Izzie…" Is he really talking about her to me right now? After all that shit he just put me through, does he really think I wanna hear about this bitch again? Okay, so I don't completely hate her I admit. I could've lost Aubree if she wasn't so kind as to help me. She's a goodhearted person, but still. I don't want to hear about her. She's the reason I don't have him anymore. "Iz…" I roll my eyes. He sounds like it hurts to talk. I really don't want him to talk because it sounds like it's hurting him so much to talk but I have to talk to him. I want to know how he's doing. I may be ending things with him but I really need him to be okay. He can't die. I will NOT be okay if he dies. "Iz said…you were…having pains…are you okay?" He sounds like he's talking with a mouthful of cotton. "How's…my daughter?"

"I'm fine and she's fine. They gave me an amnioinfusion and she's okay. We're both fine." I'm surprised at how okay he sounds. He sounds like he's really okay, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about and he doesn't sound like he's too far out of it. He knows that I'm pregnant and he's retaining information. He sounds fine. And I'm trying so hard to be mad at him but I can't. He's my baby… "Now what about you? How are you feeling? What are your vitals looking like?"

"I'm…stable." He mutters. "Some pain…they're givin' me morphine for the pain." He coughs. "Why aren't you here? Jo, where are you? Why'd you leave me here alone?"

"You're not alone, you're with her."

"No…I want you." I'm not real sure because Alex isn't much of a crier, but it sounds to me like he's crying. "You should be here Jo…" He sniffs. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Olympia. I went home with Stephanie…we had to get out of there."

"Olympia?"

"Yeah…"

"What are you doing there? You should be here…with me…what are you doing?" Yeah, he sounds really upset. "Where are you… come be here with me…"

"Alex, no." I can't believe he's expecting me to be with him. Unless… maybe he doesn't remember. "…Don't you remember? You…were dying. You were circling the drain and you…called out for her. You basically told me to get away from you. You basically told me to get away from you and you…called out for her. You wanted her. You told her not to leave you…Alex, don't you remember?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes you did." I feel myself getting ready to cry. "You broke my heart when you said it…you definitely said it. You said it."

"Well I didn't mean it…"

"Yeah right." I mumble, shaking my head. I gently push on the sore spot on my belly to massage it. This spot is so sore. "Did she tell you? Did she tell you I told her to tell you that I'm done?"

"Done?" I think he's crying really hard. "Jo no…you can't be done. What about me?"

"I said I'm done, Alex. I'm so done. You meant that. And you know you did."

"Jo…just wait. They're letting me outta here tomorrow…we can talk. I'll…come. I'll drive to Olympia and we can talk."

"You're not driving anywhere, do you hear me? You better keep your ass in Seattle. I don't care how okay you feel, I swear to GOD, Alex, if I find out you were driving…I'll kill you with my bare hands. You're gonna take your ass home and you're gonna let Izzie take care of you like I know she will. You're not going anywhere but home." I'm doing a good job at contradicting myself. I'm telling him how done with this relationship I am but in the same breath, I'm yelling at him about taking care of himself because I love him so damn much. But whatever. I have to think about myself. I can't keep fooling myself with him. "And there's nothing for us to talk about. It's my fault. I was the stupid one. All this time, I was the stupid one. I'm the one that did this to myself. I let you… I let you fall into a relationship with me when I knew that you weren't ready to commit yourself to me. You're not over her yet Alex…I know you're not." He's dead silent on the other end. "If you were…you wouldn't have even thought about her. You wouldn't have even…felt the need…to…call out to her. If you loved me the way you say you do, it'd be me. It would've been me…you called out to. And it wasn't. You don't love me…and I'm not mad…I'm not. I love you…but love's not enough."

"I can't help what I did…I can't help it and I can't take it back…but I love you." He sounds so weak. See, I really didn't want to do this to him right now. I didn't want to tell him how done I am over the phone, especially when he's still got a bullet lodged in his chest. But he left me no choice. "I don't even remember doing it…but Jo, I love you. Hear me? I love you. And I want you, not her. I don't want her…I don't care about her. I want you…"

"I know." I'm about to cry myself but I hold it back. "I know…you don't remember. I know. But Alex, you did. You saved her from a bullet and you called her name." I sigh. I didn't expect this to hurt this much. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as losing him hurt though, I'll tell you that. Telling him this does not hurt nearly as much as I hurt when I thought I was saying my goodbyes to him. "And I can't forget that. You said it…more than once, actually. You said it…and I can't forget that you said it. You have to understand my position here. Don't make me out to be the bad guy Alex, because I'm not. I'm not. I'm not even mad at you for it. How could I be? I'm not mad. But I'm not sticking around just to get more hurt in the end."

"…Jo, I love you. I love you so much…And I mean it this time. I'm not saying it to keep you and I'm not saying it just to hear myself say it. I love you. I'm laying here in this hospital bed and I'm thinking about you. Not Iz, not anybody else…but you. I have a bullet in my chest. I have a bullet in my chest and the first thing I thought about was you. About the last time I got to hold you…to kiss you…I'm thinking about you. And I'm thinking about the life I want to live with you…and our daughter… and that's what I want. I don't wanna lose you and I don't wanna lose Aubree. I want both of you."

"…I'm not…" Does he really think that I would… "I'm not gonna keep you from Aubree. She has a daddy and I'm not gonna keep her from you. I would never do that…ever. You have her. You have Aubree and you'll always have Aubree. But you can't have me anymore. What kind of woman would I be if I kept you from what your heart wants? When people are…in shock or in fear like you were…they speak the truth. And I think it was the truth. And I wouldn't like myself very much if you were staying with me just for the family you think we could be. Alex, go be with Izzie. Okay? Go be with her. It's what you want…it's what I want for you." I sigh. "Just don't invite me to the wedding this time. And don't…cheat on her with me anymore. Just don't."

"How do I get you back?" He says, matter of factly. He doesn't care about anything else I just said, he cares about what he's saying now. "What do I gotta do to show you that you're what I want? I don't know…I don't know what I did. I don't know what I did or what I said…I don't even remember what happened after I got shot. But I do know that I love you. I know that much. So what I need…from you…is to tell me…how I can get you back."

"…I don't want you to try."

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><p><span><strong>AN:** So after this chapter, things might speed up a little. I just want to get the ball rolling with Aubree and my goal is to have her here by chapter 60. This story is getting to be pretty long and I would still like to do some chapters based on Alex and Jo's co-parenting with Aubree so I'm gonna speed up the pregnancy a little bit and try to have Aubree here by about chapter 60. I'm gonna try my hardest to keep everything in a realistic manner so the chapters might start to get longer and longer but just bear with me. Aubree will be here pretty soon and that's because I still want to do some pretty cute chapters with Alex and Jo just being parents. So make sure you follow or keep up with my tumblr (flawlesspeasant . tumblr . com) because I will be posting pictures of Aubree on there.

Also, the updates here might get a little less frequent. I was on winter break from school for two weeks and I have to go back tomorrow, unfortunately :( So updates might be less frequent than what they were for these past two weeks.


	54. Apologetically

**A/N:** Chapter 53 didn't show up in the recently updated section on here, so make sure you didn't miss it before checking out chapter 54.

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><p>"How the hell did you get cleared for surgery if you still have the bullet in your chest?" Mere takes a heaping bite out of a dark red apple and snatches the yellow slip of paper out of my hands. I got cleared for surgery today. It's been three weeks and four days since the shooting…three weeks and four days. This psychologist has to clear us for surgery before we can go back to normal and I just got cleared today. I've been back at work since last week and I'm just now getting cleared. I think Mere's mad because she's not even cleared yet and she didn't get shot. I got shot and I'm still carrying the bullet around in my chest and I'm cleared. She's pissed. "Whose ass did you have to kiss to get cleared?" She shoves the paper back at me and a piece of apple goes flying out of her mouth and lands on the table in front of me.<p>

I tune my nose up and flick it off the table. "Nobody's ass. He called me in, talked to me about it and bam…got cleared." I fold the yellow paper up and tuck it away in the pocket of my white coat. "Good thing too, because I was getting sick of doing Arizona's scut." I saw Dr. Altman today about the bullet, actually. It worked its way to the surface of my skin so she can cut a little hole and take it out now without a problem, but it's not infected so she can just leave it in. It's not infected, it doesn't hurt and it's not causing problems so I don't see the issue in leaving it in. It's my battle wound, you know? Chicks really dig that kind of shit. You tell a girl you're walking around with a bullet in your chest and they practically just throw their ass at you. Chicks really eat that shit up. "Just go in there and act all sappy and disturbed…he'll clear you in an instant."

"I just don't get how you actually GOT shot…you bled out and would've died in two minutes without a chest tube and you're cleared but I'm not." She chomps on her mouthful of apple and swallows. "This is bullshit. Everyone got cleared. Cristina's cleared, Mark's cleared, Derek's cleared, Owen is…they cleared Lexie and now they cleared YOU…But I'm still waiting here." She leans back in her chair and tosses her apple core into the trashcan. "You guys are all gonna be operating while I'm working at the mall serving slushies for the rest of my life….all because some goddamned botched psychologist won't clear me for freakin' surgery. Do you know how many bedpans I've cleaned? How many central lines I've placed? Throw me a frickin' bone here!"

"Boy." I reach into the fruit basket on the table and grab a pear. "No surgery has made you mean." I peel off the little sticker that's on all fruits and toss it on the floor. I rub the pear on the knee of my scrub pants and take a bite. I really can't help but wonder why exactly Mere hasn't been cleared. All I had to do was go sit in front of the psychologist, tell him what I remembered about being shot, tell him how being shot has actually changed my life for the better and BAM. I was cleared for surgery. I look up at the clock on the wall and make sure it's not time for rounds and it's not. We still have twenty minutes before rounds. I turn the pear to the side I didn't bite yet and take another sink out of it. I didn't lie to the psychologist, by the way. Getting shot actually did change my life. I don't know if it changed it for the better but it definitely changed it. I think about things now and I never used to. I think about how I want to leave this earth…if that makes any sense. Whatever, just know that getting shot changed me.

"You'd be mean too if you couldn't operate." She folds her arms and puts them down on the table. She rests her chin in her arms and sighs. "Derek has a cordoma he's operating on this afternoon…I could be scrubbing in on that." She whines. I pretend to be really interested in the pear I'm currently eating instead of looking at her. I kind of wish that either Kepner, Avery or Yang was in here to listen to her bitching rather than me but they're not. Yang's doing a mitral valve replacement, Avery's on paternity leave and Kepner's on maternity leave. Speaking of Kepner and Avery, I haven't seen their kid yet. I've seen pictures of the little guy and he looks like Avery but I haven't seen him in person. I haven't really had the chance to though. "I wanna do surgery…" She whines again. No offense to Mere, but I don't really care that she hasn't been cleared. All I care about is that I got cleared. Sure I feel bad because if there's anybody that's good at surgery, it's Mere but still. At least I got cleared. Mere's quiet. Entirely too quiet. "…You talk to Wilson yet?" See, I knew that was coming.

I was doing so good with not thinking about Jo. I almost went an hour without having her even cross my mind. "Nope." I mutter and throw the core of my pear into the trashcan. It's been three weeks and four days since I've seen Jo. I talked to her last Friday because she had an appointment to check on the baby but that was it. And we didn't even talk voice to voice; it was through text messages. She didn't even tell me that she had an appointment, she just went. And after it was over, she texted me and told me that Aubree's growing fine, her ovaries are still up high so they haven't dropped to become testicles yet…she's still a girl and she'll definitely remain a girl at this point and she got some new pictures that she'll text to me when she gets the chance. She never texted me the pictures, by the way. I haven't seen her in person in three weeks and four days. She was in Olympia for the week that the hospital shut down for and she stayed there an extra week , which means she was in Olympia for two weeks. And she's been back home for a week and I still haven't seen her. I was at the end of my desperate, pitiful rope a couple days ago. I knew she was back home because when she texted me that Friday, my phone told me that her texts were being sent from Seattle, Washington. So I found out she was home and I went over to see her. Edwards answered the door and Edwards told me that Jo wasn't home. I know she was home but I took that as a sign. I took that as she didn't want to see me. If she was telling Edwards to lie about whether or not she was there, she must not have wanted to see me. So I haven't seen her in a while and I miss her but I really think she's done with me. We don't talk unless it has to do with Aubree and that's that. She's back at work today but I just don't think that I should talk to her.

"…You should talk to her." Mere keeps sticking her nose in my business and I really wish she'd quit. I'm handling the Jo situation as best as I can and she should just leave me alone about it. I don't want to talk about Jo and there's a reason. I don't want to talk about Jo. I should wear a shirt that says "STOP ASKING ME ABOUT JO". I just haven't found a way to fix it between us yet. I don't know how to fix this yet. "You should talk to her…let her know that you're sorry. Tell her that you love her…"

"Don't you think I tried that, Mere?!" I accidentally snap on her but whatever. I've BEEN trying to apologize to Jo but she won't listen. I tried calling her, she won't answer. I've left her voicemails. I text her, she doesn't respond. I go to her house, her friend lies and says she's not there. I haven't SEEN her in three fucking weeks. I've TRIED. "I'm goin' crazy without her but…what else can I do? I hurt her, Mere. Bad. I hurt her bad…and I don't know how to fix it. I'm goin' so crazy without her…" Iz isn't a factor anymore either, it's just me trying to make things work with my baby's mother. Iz is still in Seattle and she's still trying so hard to get me back but I don't want Iz. I'm not even making her a factor anymore. I'm ignoring her, I'm letting her talk, I haven't spoken a word to Iz since I made her leave the hospital after I got shot. I had just got done talking to Jo on the phone and Jo told me that she didn't want me to try to get her back. And I was pissed and I made Iz leave. I said some really nasty things to Iz but she left and I haven't spoken to her since.

I put my hands over my face because if I do end up crying, I don't want Mere to see me cry. "Mark told Derek the story…and Derek told me." She puts her hand against my arm and rubs. "Jo has a reason to be hurt…the story's pretty awful." I just shake my head. I'm sure Jo does have a reason to be pissed. I'm sure her reason is very valid because Jo's a very reasonable person. She's reasonable as hell and whatever I truly did to make her so upset with me was probably really painful for her to deal with. I've called Jo a "dumb bitch", I've told her that she deserved to have been beaten by her ex, I told her that I hated her, I've called her "stupid" countless times and she's stayed. She hasn't even budged. So whatever I did was probably horrific. I just don't want to know the whole story because I don't want to know what I did. "Do you want me to tell you?" I shake my head again. "It might make it better. You could apologize to her for specifics…if you know the story."

"I don't wanna know, Mere. You think I want to know what I did to hurt her?" I rub my eyes, which are just a little bit damp and put my hands down. I clear my throat. "I don't wanna know…" I'm pretty sure she's mad at me because I did something to suggest that I might love Izzie more than I love Jo but I don't know specifics. I don't remember specifics. I was shot and in shock and so fucked up at the time that I didn't know what I was doing. "There's no apologizing for this…" I hold my head in my hands and sigh. "…What did I do, Mere? What did I do?"

"…Okay, well…" She has her hand on my arm. "Keep in mind that this story was directly from Mark. And Mark is unbiased…so he's not on Izzie's side and he's not on Jo's side. He's neutral…so he's not trying to make anyone sound bad." I nod my head when she says that. "So…you threw Izzie out of the way. The shooter was going for her and you threw her out of the way…which is painful in itself, it's noble that you took a bullet for a girl but when your baby mama finds out you took a bullet for your ex, that sucks." Mere's sarcasm wears thick but I just listen anyway. "Anyway…Izzie dragged you to a conference room and left to get help…and she came back with Mark. And Edwards was…wherever Mark was. So Edwards heard Izzie when she said she needed Mark to help you. So Mark came and Edwards followed but Edwards went to go get Jo." Okay, this all makes sense so far. "So you were lying there…dying…bleeding out. And you called out for Izzie. Then Jo came in the room and she and Izzie had words and the two of them started fighting…fist fighting." Sounds like Jo. Jo would fight and Iz isn't a slouch when it comes to fighting either. "When they got broken up, Jo went over to you and kissed you and tried to get you to focus…but you told her no. you told her you didn't want her, but that you wanted Izzie." Damn… "And Jo passed out." She did? "And then she came to her senses and left you alone since you didn't want anything to do with her. But you were bleeding pretty bad so you needed a chest tube. Izzie wouldn't leave you, so Edwards went to get a crash cart and Jo went and got you a chest tube. And you were circling the drain pretty fast so Mark hooked some FFP into your IV…and he was busy with that so he asked someone to do a chest tube. And Jo did it. Jo cut you open and gave you the chest tube that saved your ass. But then…even though she saved your ass, you still cried out for Izzie." _Wow, man. No wonder Jo won't talk to me. No wonder. I really did all of that? Oh…crap. _"The chest tube bought you some time but you needed a transfusion… and they didn't have the stuff to transfuse you so…you were gonna die. But Jo was still willing to go risk her life to get you some blood from the blood bank. Izzie didn't want to go but Jo was gonna. But Mark stopped her. Mark told her that it wouldn't have made a difference since they didn't have the materials. And Jo went batshit crazy. Mark said she was crying…and holding you…and singing to you..and she was fighting for you to stay alive. She saved your life, Alex."

"…How do I apologize for that?" I mutter into my hands. "She thinks I meant to. She thinks that I meant to…call out to Izzie. She knows that I was in shock but she thinks that I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. So how do I apologize for that, Mere? How do I tell her that it was a mistake? That I was fucked up? How do I tell her that? How do I explain that in a way that she understands and that she believes me? How?"

"You and Jo love each other. And if you…just fight for her…let her know that you and Izzie are DONE…she has to listen. You guys are stuck with each other for another eighteen years…she'll have to listen to you sometime."

"I hope you're right." I sniff and clear my throat. I glance up at the time. Five minutes until rounds. "…Lemme get up and go to the pit…see where Bailey wants me for rounds. Robbins is out sick and I might have to run the Peds floor." I slide out my chair and stand up, stretching out my arms and yawning. Mere makes it sound so easy to get Jo to listen to me. She doesn't know how stubborn my girl can be sometimes though. Jo's headstrong, independent, stubborn and it's very hard to change her mind sometimes. I have to be alone in a room that's locked with Jo in order to get her to even consider listening to me. I just really need to find a way to get her to hear me. I need to get my Jo back. I can't lose her. We've been thought too much shit for me to lose her now. I have to pull a miracle out of my ass to get her to listen to me but honestly, maybe Mere's right. Maybe she's right and maybe I can apologize for specifics now that I know the story.

I know Jo doesn't believe me at this point, but really…I don't want anyone else but Jo and Aubree. I want the two of them forever, always. And no matter what I said, I still don't want Iz. I don't want Iz. I do have love for her, obviously but she's not what I want. Iz broke me. She broke me down and I can't forget that. Iz broke my damn heart…why would I go back to a woman that did that to me? Jo's amazing. Jo's never done anything to hurt me, she's never done anything but support me. I love her and I need her in my life. I don't want anyone if they're not Jo and that's just the way it is. I'll never want anyone but Jo and that's what getting shot taught me. Getting shot taught me that I could be taken out of this world in an instant. I could die somewhere as simple as work, somewhere as safe as a hospital. I could die at any given moment. And I want to be with my girls. I want Jo…and I want her for as long as I live. And I want Aubree. I want my daughter like the air I breathe. I don't want Iz. Iz can't give me half the things Jo can. And I want Jo.

I need her to listen to me long enough to make her know that.

**X X X **

"A bus crashed down on Park and Fifth Avenue…multiple traumas coming in, everyone be on their game." Dr. Bailey busies herself with putting on a trauma gown and barks orders at us. I grab a yellow trauma gown and unfold it so I can put it on too. All the residents and attendings got paged down to the ER for an incoming trauma so the interns have to do rounds today. Heather Brooks is my intern for the day so she's up on Peds and I already had to let her know that I will kill her dead and make sure she does nothing but scut for the rest of her internship if she screws up on rounds today. If she screws up on rounds, I'm fucked because Robbins is trusting ME to run the Peds floor today. "Grey, go do sutures because you're not cleared yet…Yang go sit with Hunt, Karev come here." Dr. Bailey orders me.

I tie my trauma gown around my back and walk over to her. "Yeah?" I actually don't mind working with Dr. Bailey like everyone else does. She's obviously not my first choice but she's not half bad. She's just super focused and not to be messed around with. Kinda like me sometimes, hehe.

"You go do sutures with Grey." She turns her back to me.

"…Sutures? Why? I got cleared this morning…" I pat my body to see if I have my yellow slip of paper to show her before I realize that I left it in my white coat, which is over in trauma room one where I left it. "I'll show you my paper, hold on…" I turn to go grab it but she pulls me back by my trauma gown.

"I know you got cleared by the doctor but I haven't cleared you yet." She says, matter-of-factly. I wrinkle my brow and just look at her. "Aren't you still walking around with a bullet in your damn chest?"

"Well yeah, but it doesn't hurt. I'm fine." I put my hands on my hips. "I'm good to operate so I'm good to be here."

"It doesn't hurt?" She raises her eyebrow at me. I shake my head and say "no" while she looks at me like that. The bullet really doesn't hurt. It feels fine. I wouldn't be walking around if it hurt, you know? "Does it hurt when I do this?!" She jams her finger in the part of my chest where the bullet is and pushes. I jump away from her and hold back a scream. "That's what I thought. Now go get that damn bullet outta your chest before I let you do anything trauma related today." She means business so I'm not in the position to refuse her. "GO!" I just keep staring at her, hoping she'll crack. I really want to keep my bullet. It's my bullet and I'm single now. Do you know how much tail you get when you're carrying around a bullet? "….WILSON!" She screams and snaps her fingers behind me. Jo? Is she calling Jo? I turn around to see what she's snapping her finger at.

"Yeah?" Her voice…so angelic just the way I remember it. I haven't heard her voice in weeks. I just take the moment to look at her. She's wearing light blue scrubs and her hair is down, pin straight and it falls past her boobs. She never straightens her hair. She's so beautiful, I can't take it. She puts down the IV kit she was just holding and walks over to Dr. Bailey. She's still really thin but my eyes fall down to her waistline and it's definitely thickening. It's noticeable to everyone that knows how skinny she used to be that she's a little bit pregnant but she doesn't look nearly as big as she should be for as far along as she is. She's going on 22 weeks but she only looks like she's about 15. She doesn't even look at me, she looks directly at Dr. Bailey. It's like she doesn't even know me.

"Go into trauma room three, put some gloves on and take that bullet out of Dr. Karev's chest." Bailey orders her. Jo's eyes widen and her eyebrows wrinkle. "Don't act like you don't hear me." Bailey says, firmly and Jo's expression changes. "You take him into trauma room three, you give him a mild shot of lidocaine in his chest and you take that bullet out. Is that too hard for you to comprehend?" Jo shakes her head. "It's a simple task…if you can't do it then I'll do it my damn self." This is the happiest moment of my day but I can tell by the look on Jo's face that she's dreading it. She doesn't want to do this. I don't even think she wants to be around me. "Is there a problem, Dr. Wilson?"

"…No ma'am." Jo shakes her head and puts her hands in the pockets of her white coat. She starts walking back to trauma room three and I follow her. Remind me to thank Bailey later. She actually got me the opportunity to talk to Jo. Something tells me that if Jo and I hadn't been forced to spend time together, she would've chose to never talk to me. She opens up the door and turns the light on and I shut the door behind the both of us. Is it bad that I'm thinking about how I could make it up to her, yes…but that's on the backburner. On the front burner is me, thinking about the things I could do to her in this trauma room. She's so damn beautiful. It doesn't make me any sense how pretty she is. I could bend her over this trauma room table, I could put her against that wall… I feel like an ass but that's really what I'm thinking about. "Take your shirt off, please." She sounds really professional. She puts on a pair of blue gloves.

I take my shirt off and sit down on the trauma table. She pushes her hair out of the way and stands next to me. "So you said the bullet isn't bothering you? It's not causing any issues but… you just need it out?" She reaches in the drawer and grabs an alcohol pad. She opens it up and runs it along the spot where the bullet is at. "Lift your arm up, please." She asks and I do. She puts her hands around the bullet and pushes on it to get a good location on it. She's so professional it's killing me. "It's pretty close to the surface, it shouldn't hurt too badly." She mutters to herself and whizzes around the room to go to where we keep the pain management drugs. She grabs a small shot and reads the label on it. "Okay sir, you'll feel a little pinch…"

"Sir? Jo, really?" I look down and watch her hands while they work. "Sir?" I wince when she sticks the needle inside my skin to numb me. This isn't really how I wanted our first interaction in three weeks to be, but she's making me a little bit mad. How did I get bumped all the way back down to "sir"? I'm still Alex to her. I'm still Alex and she's still Jo and she's still someone I love and I'm still someone she had sex with. We're not perfect strangers and I don't want her to act like we're nothing to each other. She retracts the needle off the lidocaine and throws it away. "Jo."

"…It's Dr. Wilson." She says. Okay so I guess she really doesn't want to talk. I messed up so bad with her. I stare and watch her face while she works on me. Her eyes are focused and she's effortlessly gorgeous. I lost her. I lost a really, really amazing girl. She picks up the knife to cut me open and the tweezers as well. She holds my arm up with one of her hands to show me where exactly she needs me to stay still at. "Why'd you walk around with this still inside of you for so long?" She sounds like she's asking as a friend though. I just shrug my unoccupied shoulder. "What do you, want a reminder of the fact that you were shot?" She drags the blade across my skin and I'm numb so I don't feel much of anything. She shakes her head like she's disgusted with me and pulls my wound open. She holds up some of my skin and gently pushes the tweezers inside to grab the bullet. "You know this could get infected…you could get a staph infection, MERSA...infection could travel to your bloodstream…"

"I didn't want it out." I mutter and just watch as she drags the small, metal, cylindrical bullet out from beneath my skin. I should just mess with her a little bit…see if she really doesn't care about me. "You get a lot of ass when you have a bullet in your chest, you know…" She pauses for a second but keeps going. "It's true. Girls practically throw their ass at you when they hear you've got a bullet in your chest…it's a chick magnet, really." She rolls her eyes at me and drops the bullet into a metal basin. I look down at it. It's small…hard to believe something this small could cause so much damn damage. "And I'm newly single, so…" I keep pushing the envelope. "Are you single, Dr. Wilson?" She doesn't say anything. "I'm newly single. Lost the only girl I ever really ever cared about…"

"…I'm sure she had a reason." She mumbles and grabs a suture kit. "I am single." She nods. "…And I get that sometimes you can get lonely and for that reason, you feel like you need to…get girls. But for me? I wouldn't walk around with a bullet in my chest to do it." She hooks the stitches into the needle and turns her body so she can start stitching me up. "Especially if the damn thing could get infected. Like…is all the…vagina in the world really worth walking around with a foreign object in your body? It's like you got stabbed in the back…but it doesn't hurt so you don't want to pull the knife out. Why would you want to walk around with it in your back?"

"Ehh I don't know." I hold my arm up and watch her while she stitches me. Her technique is flawless. Her hands are steady, swift. It's like she's painting a picture, making perfect art. I look at her hands…and she has a lump underneath her glove, on the ring finger of her right hand. She's still wearing my ring. Does that mean something? "This girl though…" I sigh. "The one I lost, I mean…" She's listening, I can tell. But she never stops working. "She's…good, you know? Perfect for me. She's beautiful…and gentle. She's loyal, too. She's very…smart and headstrong. Stubborn, almost. She's my dream girl." She drops off one stitch and starts the next. "Do you believe in love at first sight?" She shakes her head. "I didn't either. I didn't believe in it either but when I look at her….it's kind of hard not to believe in it. It didn't take me long. It didn't take me long at all to fall in love with her…but I'm head over heels…"

"Sometimes it's better to just let something go though." She drops off another stitch and flings her hair back by tossing her head to the side. "Like…if this girl thinks it's time to let go, maybe it is. You said she's smart… so maybe she knows what she's talking about." She's almost done stitching me up. "I'm sure she knows…I'm sure she knows what's best for herself. And maybe you're not what's best."

"How can I not be what's best for her? I love her." I put my arm down when she's done working up underneath of it. "I don't think she believes me. I don't think she believes me when I say that I love her but I do." I look down at the stitches she did…they're flawless. But you know, I'm tired of speaking in code. I love Jo and I need to get her back. I'm sick of talking to her in code and I only have just a little bit of time with her before she decides she's done talking to me. Screw this. "I'm not with Iz, Jo." I let her put gauze around my stitches. She acts like she doesn't even know what I'm saying though. "I'm not with Iz and I still want you. That hasn't changed. I think you should talk to me…" She puts tape around the gauze and starts cleaning up. I grab onto her arm and pull her towards me. She looks away from me. "Jo." She purses her lips together. "…Mere told me what happened. What I did…that day." She finally looks at me. "She told me what you did…"

I watch her throat bulge out as she swallows. "…You're welcome." She throws away the suture kit and the needles and the unused gauze and hands me my shirt. She takes off her gloves and tosses them too. She's about to leave me. She's about to walk out of this room and I'm not gonna hear from her for a while and she's not gonna want to talk to me like she did before. "…And for reference." She turns around to look at me. "Next time, get the damn bullet out of your chest." She opens up the door to the trauma room and leaves out of it, slamming it behind herself. I really messed things up. And I'm just not sure how to fix it this time.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

"I think I just changed my mind about breastfeeding." I turn the page on the book I bought today and keep reading. I switch the weight on my legs so I'm comfortable while standing and hold the book in front of my face while Steph enjoys herself down in front of me. "You know your nipples crack and bleed? And your baby can taste blood while nursing?" I swear I had every intention on nursing Aubree. I was all for it and I was actually excited to do it because I was talking to April today and she said that it's an amazing experience. So I bought a book about it to read up on it so I'm prepared to do it when the time comes, but the shit in this book is scaring the hell out of me. "And you can lactate randomly? So I could be in the middle of checking on a patient and WHAM…leaky boobs. I don't know about this…"

"Oh you'll be fine. Aubby will like the boob milk and you'll like giving her the boob milk and everything will be fine." She says with a slight giggle in her tone. "So you talked to him today?" Steph's on her knees in front of me, rubbing this thick white cream on my stomach. Ever since the shooting happened, me and Steph have really been leaning on each other. We really have been. I don't have Alex anymore and I just need her. I need Steph since I don't have him anymore and it's been really hard. Today was the first time I've seen him in almost four weeks. I didn't talk to him, I didn't see him…I haven't texted him unless it pertained to Aubree and it's been killing me. Literally, it's been taking so much out of me. I just really need someone and Steph's been there so she's all I have and that's okay with me. Having Steph is better than having nobody. "What was it like…about?" She rubs the cream in on my stomach and slathers another layer on it. I don't have any stretch marks. I don't have ANY, except on my boobs. And this cream is gonna keep it that way.

I look down and watch her while she rubs the anti-stretch mark cream on my belly. I don't need her to help me, honestly. I don't need her to rub this on me and I could do it myself but she really likes it. It's the only way I ever let touch it without any stipulations. "He basically just told me he was sorry. He told me how sorry he was and he told me he loved me and how sorry he was." Surprising to me, Steph's been really supportive. I thought she'd be all over this whole me and Alex breaking up thing. I thought she'd love it but she really doesn't. She's been pushing me to get back together with him. "But Steph…I don't need him to be sorry. I don't need him to beg for my forgiveness because I'm NOT mad. How could I be mad at him for saying some things when he was disoriented? I'm a doctor…I know that people say things when they're not in their right states of mind. I know that. And I'm not mad. I'm not angry with him and this isn't a matter of me forgiving him because I'm not mad at him." When she's done rubbing the cream on my belly, I let my t-shirt go and let it fall back down. It's Alex's old wrestling t-shirt and he's not getting it back.

"But Jo…do you really want Aubree born into this mess?" She gets off her knees and screws the cap back on the tube of stretch mark cream. "You said earlier that he said he's not even with her. I don't even like the guy and I know that that's making a huge step." She side-steps the mess I have going on in my room to put the tube back on my dresser. I have Aubree's clothes strung from one end of my room to the other. There are clothes everywhere, the box for her car seat that I still haven't properly put together yet, I have blankets everywhere…my room is a mess because I'm trying to make room for a bassinet. "He's not even with her. He's not with anyone. I was working with Dr. Grey today and she and Dr. Yang were talking…and Alex is still single. He's not dating anybody. So maybe he really doesn't want her. Maybe you should just...forget everything. It's not like he did it while he was completely lucid…it's not really his fault."

"First of all…" I kick a box of diapers out of my way so I can make it to my bed. "I don't give a damn about what Aubree's born into. As long as my baby gets into this world happy and healthy, I don't give a damn what the home situation is like. As long as me and Alex can put our shit aside and do what needs to be done for my little girl…" I shrug. "I don't give a damn. Aubree's not gonna want for anything. She's gonna have diapers, bottles, love…I don't give a shit about anything else. I could give a shit about Alex, for real. I just don't care, Steph. I don't care what Aubree's born into because the shit me and Alex go through shouldn't have to affect my baby and that's that." I reach over and grab this magazine I stole from the hospital about babies. "And secondly, I can't just forget that. He's calling out for her with his dying breath and before I know it, he's screaming her name while I'm going down on him in bed."

"You went down on him?"

"I swear I told you that." I keep flipping through the magazine, looking at all the things that my baby girl deserves but I can't afford to get. "I swear I told you I went down on him like…the night after I did it." I reach over on my dresser and pick up one of the lollipops I still have left from my candy binge. Aubree wanted candy earlier this week so I went out and bought a shitload of it. I pull the wrapper off the lollipop and stick it in my mouth. "I haven't had sex in a month." I grumble. "He took his shirt off for me today and I thought I was just gonna turn off the lights in the trauma room and get naked and beg him to bang me." I push the lollipop to my cheek with my tongue and sigh. "These hormones make my vagina scream."

Steph laughs. "Really? Your vagina scream?" She flops down on her belly on my bed and grabs the breastfeeding book I was reading. This is actually pretty normal for Steph. She was messed up for a while there about the shooting, you know. It took her like…two full weeks of being in Olympia to finally get over it. I'm over it…but I still have dreams about Alex screaming while I'm cutting him open sometimes. "Has it really been a month since you got…the…D?" She shakes her head at me.

"Yes!" I pull the lollipop out of my mouth by the stick and put the magazine down. "The last time I had sex was when me and Alex were supposed to be painting the nursery…last month. I haven't had sex since then, because I'm not having sex with anyone that's not Alex." I put the lollipop back. "I'm all fat and unattractive and pregnant right now so nobody wants to jump my bones. Besides…I think having sex with someone while you're pregnant…that ISN'T your baby's daddy…that's just skanky."

"You need laid. Just…text Alex and tell him to come over. Tell him to come over and have sex with him and then you can go back to hating him. I think all your problems will be solved if you just…get laid." She's flipping through the breastfeeding book.

"Just because you got the beefcakes last week…Now you're all mellow." I mutter, rolling my eyes and still flipping through my magazine. "And I don't hate Alex. I love Alex. I love him a lot, actually. I almost bawled my eyes out crying while I was taking that bullet outta him today. He didn't…" I put the magazine down and run my hand through my hair. The prenatal pills have really made my hair grow like crazy. It's almost down to my bellybutton now and I haven't found the time to cut it yet. "He didn't even want it out, Steph. He wanted to keep it inside. Dr. Bailey told me to go cut it out and I almost died. I didn't know he still had it in. I was taking it out and I felt… Steph I thought I was gonna lose it. Son of a bitch could've killed him and he kept it in." I sigh. "And it was so hard for me not to kiss him. I didn't think… I didn't think I was ever gonna see him alive again…and there I was, taking his bullet out of his chest. I wanted to just kiss him…and hold him. That's my baby." I bite my lip. "But I'm trying to let him go. I'm trying to give him a chance to be happy…"

"Jo, I really think he loves you." Steph looks me dead in my eye. "Guy's an asshole sometimes…but I really think he loves you." She puts her hand on my knee. "And you're really not fooling anyone with that 'I don't care' act. You care…it's not hard at all to tell when you care. When you care, you…try so hard to convince yourself that you don't care when you really do. You care…about Aubree having her mom and her dad. And you care about Alex. And you know that having a mom and a dad is what's best for her. You know that…and you care. So stop trying to act like you don't."

"…Well of course I care." I mumble. "It's just like… I can't really trust him. How can I trust that when he says something to me, it's genuine? I can't trust him…but hell, I love him. But I don't want to believe in a relationship that doesn't have trust. And if that's the case, then I have no issue being a single mom as long as Aubree is taken care of. I just don't trust him…"

"You have to build that trust back though."

"I'm too scared to get hurt. Steph, he has me. He has me…and he has his hooks in me so deep. I never thought it was possible for me to hurt as bad as I did. I hurt so bad when I thought I lost him. I wanted to kill her because she didn't treat him right. And I thought he died and I lost my damn mind. And that would've never happened if I didn't love him as much as I do." I lick my lips. "And now I'm scared to let him back in…because I know what he could do to me."

"...So take him back anyway. He loves you, you love him…that's the bottom line. Take him back anyway."


	55. I Need You

_How the hell am I supposed to cross a striped candy with a chocolate ball five damn times? This level is impossible. _I drag my thumb across the screen of my phone and cross one chocolate ball with a blue striped candy. I watch as all the blues turn colors and clear out my entire board. I've been playing Candy Crush for the last three hours and I'm starting to get bored. I started on level 17 because I really suck at this game but I've made it all the way to level 43, all because I've been playing for HOURS. No wonder Dr. Maxwell called last night to make sure I didn't work today because this appointment is literally taking up my entire morning. It's a good thing I don't work today, you know? When she said she needed me to get a glucose test, I thought for sure she was gonna take some of my blood and test it. No, I didn't think she was gonna tell me to eat something late last night and not eat again until after this thing is done. I pigged out on fast food last night and I haven't eaten anything but sips of water here and there since.

This lady took some of my blood when I first got here and sent it off to the lab. And every hour ON the hour, she's come back to take more and more blood from me. They took three total samples, one an hour. After they took the three, they made me drink some orange shit and they took a final sample of blood and now, I'm finally in the home stretch of this long ass appointment, waiting for Dr. Maxwell to come in here and check on me and my baby and give me the results and then I can go home. The orange shit was so gross. It was way too sugary…I could taste the sugar inside the bottom of it. It was all syrupy and disgusting. Did I mention my phone's battery is on near death mode? Dr. Maxwell told me over the phone last night to bring something to entertain me because this appointment is lengthy so I thought my phone would entertain me. I'm starting to wish I had brought Steph. She asked me if I needed company and I told her no. But even more than I wish I had brought Steph, I wish I had brought Alex.

He had to work this morning so he wouldn't be able to come anyway. But I did that on purpose. I really don't want to be bothered with him during these routine checkups. The big ones, like the ultrasound days and stuff…that's when I'll bother him. I just don't really want him to be here for these boring procedures because that means I'd have to actually talk to him and I don't want to do that. I don't want to relive the day of him getting shot and that's that. So yeah…I kind of scheduled this appointment today on purpose. I made sure he had to work so he wouldn't be able to come. But if I knew I'd be this bored sitting here, I would've brought him anyway. Talking to him about what happened the day he got shot has got to be more interesting than sitting here, killing my battery playing Candy Crush and an occasional round of Trivia Crack.

Just as I'm about to cross my final chocolate ball with my striped candy, a soft knock sounds and the door opens up. I lock my phone up and stick it in the pocket of the pair of sweatpants I wore this morning. I'm ready to go home and eat. I'm starving from fasting. The only thing I had today was a couple sips of water and that nasty orange shit. Dr. Maxwell looks so peppy today. She always looks peppy, but the pep is a lot more prominent today for some reason.

"So how's everything been?" Dr. Maxwell puts down her usual yellow clipboard and shuts and locks the door to the exam room she's been seeing me in for the past five and a half months. I've been seeing her for so long that it's just normal to me anymore. I know what to expect, I'm comfortable around her, I'm not scared to ask her questions and I know she'll answer my questions faithfully and truthfully. This is normal to me now and I probably won't be here any longer than half an hour. "Since I've seen you last? Anything cool, new or exciting?" She comes straight over to the table and I know that means she wants me to lie down. I saw her about two weeks ago, the day after we came back from Steph's house in Olympia and nothing's changed since then. Besides the fact that my feet hurt and my back is crampy, nothing's changed. I shake my head at her and lie back flat, careful that my head is on the headrest. She lifts up my shirt and exposes my bare belly. "Anything you want me to address?" She puts her hands underneath the roundest part of my belly and gently pushes. I've gotten bigger, by the way. My stomach sticks out quite far…far enough to the point that I can't see my feet when I look down.

"Not really." I grit my teeth and look up at the ceiling while she pushes on what seems to be my bladder. Did I ever mention how uncomfortable it is for people to touch your pregnant belly? It's so uncomfortable. It's honestly so weird. I don't want anyone—not just Alex or whatever—to touch it. I'm not even completely okay with Steph touching it sometimes. It just feels like someone's touching my insides. It's the strangest feeling. "Just normal pregnancy stuff…like achy feet and a sore back." She pushes below my bellybutton and my eyes squint. Okay, picture this. Put your finger in your bellybutton. Go on, do it. Now push. Feels weird, doesn't it? That's the best way I can describe someone touching your pregnant belly. It feels so weird. She takes her hands away from my stomach and I sit back up, pulling my shirt back down. "Other than that, I can't really complain."

"And how's Aubree doing?" She asks me with a wide, genuine smile. She gives my stomach a few gentler pats and caresses. I think she's trying to get a good location on her. "Have you felt her hiccup? Does she kick a whole lot more these days?"

"Yeah, she had hiccups last night I think." I crack a little smile just thinking about what happened last night. I swear, my baby is the only thing that can make me smile anymore. It used to be Alex and my baby and Alex doesn't make me smile much anymore but I always find it so hard to stay in a bad mood when I think about my baby. "I had some iced tea last night and I think I drank it too fast…maybe…I dunno." I can't stop smiling and it feels good since I haven't been smiling much lately. "But I kept feeling these jerky things in my belly. The baby book I've been reading mentioned hiccups back in week 19 but I'm 22 and a half weeks and I haven't felt anything yet so I just assumed I wouldn't get them. But she hiccupped last night and I thought it was cute."

"Good…good. That's good. That means her lungs are getting a workout." She puts her stethoscope in hear ears and puts the flat end on my belly. "…And what about kicking? Does she kick a lot? Is she moving around a bit?"

"…She doesn't move much." I think about lying to her and telling her that Aubby moves around and kicks me a lot, for the sake of sparing my feelings from the possibility of her telling me that her not kicking could be a sign of something seriously wrong. But I won't lie. I decide against lying. "She does move, but it's not much. She'll swim around…and sometimes she'll kick me, but only when I agitate her. Like…" I take a breath so I can give her an example. "My girlfriend likes to feel her kick and I tried to tell her that Aubree doesn't kick much because she doesn't…I've only felt her kick like…ten times or so, maybe less. But she was insistent that she felt her kick so I shook her. I put my hand on my stomach and shook her and that made her kick. So she does move and she does kick, but only when she feels like it and only when she's agitated. I have to shake her or poke her to get her to kick…is that bad?"

"Not at all." Dr. Maxwell shakes her head. "Back when you saw that obstetrician at Seattle Presbyterian and you found out you were losing some amniotic fluid, she paged me. I had her run a test on some of the fluid you lost and everything was fine. No abnormalities, no genetic things that I detected from the fluid sample. And she looked good on the ultrasound pictures she sent to me as well. Your baby girl's perfectly healthy…she's just mellow. You shouldn't worry, Jo. You just have a very mellow, very chilled out baby in there."

"Okay." I breathe a sigh of relief and put my hand against my heart. I guess deep down inside of me somewhere, I knew that Aubby was okay. I knew nothing was really wrong with her. But the possibility still drove me absolutely nuts. I kind of like that thought. Aubree's mellow…she's chill. That describes her. I wonder where she got that from, though. Because I'm sure as hell not calm and Alex is just as feisty as I am. Maybe my hotheadedness and Alex's hotheadedness cancelled each other out and we just got a calm, mellow baby.

"Step over here on the scale for me. And put your hands against the metal so I can take your blood pressure. Make sure you squeeze tight." She picks up the clipboard again and stands beside the scale. I carefully climb down off the table and go over to the scale. I step up on it and wait for it to read because it's electronic. I squeeze my hands on the metal handles of the scale because it's all fancy and it takes my pulse and my blood pressure with these sensors on it. "And your stress levels haven't changed since last time? You and Alex still aren't together and you're still dreaming about the shooting?" I nod my head. It's been exactly four weeks and three days since me and Alex have been together. It'll be a month exactly tomorrow since the shooting and a month since I've kissed him. I think I'm doing better…better than I was doing, anyway. "How often are you dreaming about the shooting?"

"…Less and less." I do miss Alex, I won't lie about that. I miss him a lot. I miss just having his constant company and I miss just knowing that I had him no matter what. I miss him so much…I almost cracked the other day. I was off two days ago and I decided to get some Aubree stuff done. I started to put her car seat together but I got all confused because the seatbelt part and the straps kept getting tangled up and I didn't know how to weave them through the plastic part. I almost called him and asked him to do it but I remembered that I can't trust him. And I don't want to take Alex back or whatever until I can completely trust him. I just can't open myself up to get hurt like that again, you know? Ever since I moved here to Seattle, I haven't taken enough care of myself. I lived in a place with black mold all over the place and I wouldn't feed myself for the sake of feeding Brynn. I've been letting my emotions get fucked with nonstop and I'm just fed up and tired of being sad all the time. I'm trying to take care of myself for once, because Aubree's health depends on MY health and my health is pretty fucked up right now. It's time to take a moment. I'd like to be myself for a while…just me.

"Your blood pressure's good…really good." She scribbles my numbers down on the clipboard. "…But you haven't gained anything in two weeks." She writes down my weight as well. "You were 125 two weeks ago and you're 125 today. You only gained three pounds total, Jo…that's not good." She sounds like she's worried but she's trying to keep it together for the sake of not alarming me. "You're not gaining anything…are you eating anything?"

I don't understand. I eat SO much. I literally just spend my time eating. I eat so much food…how am I not gaining any weight? I really don't understand this. What's wrong with me? "I don't understand how I haven't gained anything though. I totally pigged out last night…I had two large French fries from McDonalds, a hot dog from Sonic and I drank an entire gallon of iced tea in one sitting. I don't get it." I step back off the scale and sigh. There's really something wrong with me when I can't even gain weight for my child. I don't get it. I never had a problem with gaining weight before. "…But my belly's big. Isn't it? It's significantly bigger than it was last time. I…" I put my hand against my stomach. "I measure it. With a Sharpie on my bedroom wall. I measure it and it's growing. It's not…as big as it should be, but it's growing. So that means she's growing…doesn't it?"

"She's growing just fine, which is good actually." She puts the clipboard down and puts on a pair of gloves. "I can feel the top of your uterus while you're lying down and I can feel that little Aubree is of a decent size. But Jo, YOU need to gain weight…that's what's alarming me. You should gain about 30 pounds by the end of your pregnancy and you're struggling to gain three. I just don't want you to have this baby any earlier than you should…and low weight gain can do that to you. What's gonna happen is…" She points to a chart up on the wall of a woman's body with a baby inside of it. "When the baby starts to turn at about…34-36 weeks and her weight starts to bear down on your pelvis, it's gonna cause you to start losing your plug earlier because you don't have enough weight on your body to support the baby's weight. I need you to eat more. I know you say you eat a lot already and I believe you…I really do. But I need you to just…eat. Even when you're not hungry, eat." I nod my head. "Just eat…okay? Put on some weight for me."

"I'll try." I pull myself back up on the exam table and put my hands on my knees. I look like I have a soccer ball underneath my shirt. I'm not extremely big but naked, I am. It's not that I'm ashamed of the fact that I'm pregnant, I just don't want everyone to know if they don't have to know. Everyone that needs to know, knows. So I wear a lot of layers. I usually wear a tank top to hold my boobs in because those things are huge and obnoxious. Then I put a thermal over the tank top because it sucks my belly in. And I put a t-shirt over the thermal because the good bra that Alex bought for me is has monster straps and they're real prominent through just a tank and a thermal. Then I put my scrub top over everything, plus I wear my white coat. I look a lot thinner than what I actually am and I want to keep it that way. "So you're saying that…I have a really good chance of having Aubree early…she can be a preemie?" I bite my lip to prepare myself for the option.

"I'm not saying that it will happen because I'll try everything in my power to prevent that from happening, but if you don't start putting on the pounds, that is a possibility." When she says that, I feel my heart sink deep into the pit of my stomach. They haven't really been putting me on Peds lately and I honestly think that that's probably because the attendings know that I'm pregnant and Peds is a scary place for pregnant women…but I've spent enough time on Peds to know that the NICU is a scary place for preemies. I'm gonna lose my damn mind if Aubree has to spend any time at all in the NICU. "With that being said, I think now's a good time to come up with your birth plan. Assuming that everything goes as planned and you miraculously put on 30 pounds…we should start discussing your birth plan."

"…Birth plan?" I wrinkle my brow. I've never heard of a birth plan. I mean, I assume that it's exactly that. It's a plan for how your birth is going to go, isn't it? I never knew they had a such thing though. I thought that you go to the hospital and the doctor helps you and you have your baby and that's it. "I don't…know what that is…I don't know how to make a…birth plan." I glance over at the empty seat that's usually filled by Alex. Thinking about it, I kind of wish he was here. He just always knew what he was talking about during these appointments. He knew the answers to the questions and he would always make things sound so simple and I liked that about him. He was a comfort item to me. "I just want to have my baby safely…nothing else extra."

"Okay…I get that." She picks the clipboard back up and grabs her pen. "Do you want to get an epidural? For the pain?"

"….I don't know." I haven't gotten that far yet. I mean I know that having the baby is gonna hurt a whole hell of a lot and I know that I'll be in pain for a very long time but I haven't thought about whether I want drugs for pain or if I'd rather do it natural rather than have Aubree born all drugged out. I haven't thought about this yet. "…Can I just wait and decide? Like…if it's not too bad and if I can handle it on my own, I will. But if it gets really bad then can I get it? Is it okay if I wait to answer that?"

"You can wait, sure." She draws a line through the question and moves on. "Are you interested in nursing your baby?" She asks. I bring my hand up and scratch the crown of my head. Okay, I have thought about this. I have a breast pump and everything. But I still don't…know. I'm…not feeling well all of a sudden. I feel like my heart is beating way too fast. "What they do is…they give you a few moments to bond with your baby after delivery and if you're interested, a lactation specialist will come in and teach you how to get your baby to latch onto your breast and teach you how to hold her while she nurses…it's only if you're interested though." My heart is beating entirely too fucking fast.

"…I don't know…I don't…know…I just…" I fan myself with my hand. I'm feeling just a little bit dizzy. Like the room is spinning and my heart is beating fast and I'm sweating. I think I'm having an anxiety attack. "…Can we do this some other time?" I need Alex here with me. He knows what to do about this stuff. He knows what's best and he knows what I should do. I can't do this without him. I'm freaking out here. I'm freaking out. I'm gonna be a mom in less than four months or whatever and I haven't even thought about whether I want pain medicine or not. I'm so unprepared…I need Alex. I need him. "I'm so serious…can we just move on?"

"You can breathe, Jo. Just breathe." She puts the clipboard and the pen back down and I feel an unwavering sense of relief just wash over me. "I just wanna give you the results of your glucose test and we can be on our ways here. You're fine." She puts her hand against my back. I'm holding my hand tightly over my chest. I'm having a hard time catching my breath. "A little anxious about being a mom?" I nod my head. "It's okay. We don't need a birth plan right at this moment. You can take a while to think about these things and we can attempt to make one again when you come back next time." I nod my head again. "You okay now?" Nod. "Okay." She pats my back. "Let me go pick up your results from your glucose tolerance test and I'll let you go." I watch her as she turns to leave.

I fish my cell phone out of my pocket and go to text Steph.

**Text Message**

**Wednesday, November 10, 2014**

**12:23 p.m.**

**Me: **i'm almost done at the doctors. i'm starving. wanna go get pizza when i get home?

**12:25 p.m.**

**Stephy!: **Yeah. just text me when youre outside.

**Me: **k.

I push "send" on my last text to Steph and just as I hit the button, the door opens up and Dr. Maxwell comes back in. She's holding a packet of papers and busily looking down at them as she kicks the door closed behind herself. I shove my phone back into my pocket and sit up straight in preparation for her to release me to go eat something. She stands against the wall with a perplexed look on her face while she flips through the papers. She always looks like that though. It's usually when she's trying to figure out when's an appropriate time for me to come back and see her. I'm literally so hungry though. I put my hands down and carefully step down off the table again so I can put my shoes back on so I'm ready when it's time to leave. It's raining today so I brought a jacket. I put that on too. "When do you think my next appointment should be?" I ask her. In normal pregnancies, she'd only see me once every four weeks until the end of my pregnancy. But I'm not normal and she usually likes to do weight checks for me every two weeks or so.

"Sooner than usual." She mumbles, still looking at the packet of papers she has. "Can you sit back down for me, Jo?" She asks but she's not looking at me…which scares the shit out of me. With my legs like Jell-O, I backtrack to the exam table and sit back down on it. I don't think I'm breathing. I'm not breathing. "I just think I found out why you're not gaining much of anything." She puts down the packet of paper and puts her hands against my throat, checking my glands. Okay…I feel relieved. So it's not bad news. She just figured out why I'm not gaining weight. That's a good thing, isn't it? "How have you been using the bathroom? You noticed you've been urinating more than usual?" I shake my head. "…Your cravings though. Are they mostly sugar related? Like…snacky things?" I nod. I've been craving Frostys from Wendy's, candy, cookies…all that junk food crap. "Yeah, every last one of your readings are off the charts."

"…Okay." I don't know what that means but she sounds like she's not worried so I shouldn't be either.

She writes something on the clipboard and looks back at the packet of papers she put down. "You're REALLY glucose intolerant. Like…the worst case I've ever seen." She shows me the papers. Okay, I still don't really know what that means. Because it sounds like she's telling me that I'm… but I would know if I was. I would know and it would've caused problems before and it never has. I'm a doctor, I would know if I was… "This one…" She points. "Your fasting blood sugar…this one's at 105 and it should be below 95. And the one for an hour after drinking the solution shouldn't be any higher 170 and it's at 240…same with the two hours and the three hours. Your readings are astronomical." She shakes her head. "You're a real bad diabetic…"

"I don't have diabetes." She screwed this test up. She mixed up the vials of my blood with someone else's because I'm not diabetic. I would know if I was diabetic. I wouldn't just be diabetic all of a sudden. I would know if I was a diabetic. "I never had issues with it before. I'm not diabetic. I've had my blood taken a lot, actually. Like…when I got my job here, I had a blood test and I got a TB test and all that stuff. Wouldn't they have told me that I'm diabetic then? I don't have diabetes. I would know if I had diabetes and I wouldn't…"

"It's gestational, honey. I'm not saying you've always been, I'm just saying that it's something you developed during your pregnancy. It's gestational diabetes, honey…It happens a lot during pregnancy. I mean, I've only seen about three cases in all my time delivering babies but it's really not terribly uncommon." She puts her hand on my shoulder. "That's why you're not gaining anything. Your body can't handle the glucose. You're putting all this sugar in your body and you don't have insulin to break it down so it can't turn it into fat so you're not gaining anything. You're not even gaining muscle…" I'm not stupid. I went to medical school…I know what diabetes is. She doesn't have to explain.

"…So I…" _Don't cry. It's not that big of a deal. It's just a disease and you'll be fine. Don't you dare cry, Jo. Don't do it. _"I'm diabetic now…" I blink my eyes and a tear quickly streams out. I sweep it away fast. "So I'll have to like… prick my finger and test my blood and…not eat a lot of sugar…." Who am I kidding? I'm so upset. But I really don't want to burden anyone—especially Dr. Maxwell—with my tears. "Okay…"

I look over at the chair again…and still, it's empty.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"You're freakishly good at interior design….has anyone ever told you that?" With a slight teasing tone, he helps me drag the crib over to the spot directly beside the door. I had her crib by the window but all the different scenarios of what could happen by putting her next to the window started running through my head and I got scared so I changed my whole plan at the last minute. "And you did all of this yourself… so tell me, is this whole 'I'm a manly man wrestler thing' an act? Because this is pretty girly if you ask me." He drops the crib down when I stop walking. I want it exactly right here. Right underneath her name. "You do have a girly bone in your body…or a couple girly bones, might I add."

"Shut up, Avery." I mutter and move the crib so it's placed completely centered. It'd bug me if it were off-centered. Okay, don't make fun of me. But I got off work early today because there weren't any new cases in the NICU for me and the Peds floor is almost clean. I found myself missing Jo. I missed her a lot, actually but I knew if I texted her, she wouldn't answer. So instead of sulking around missing her, I went to the Home Depot. And I looked around for a new lock because Iz has her house key still and I think changing the locks is a good idea. But when I went to pick another lock, I stumbled across these letters. And after the letters came the pink paint and the yellow paint and the brown paint. And I couldn't stop there, of course. So I found myself in the aisles of Babies 'R Us and before I knew it, I was $1000 deep in Aubree stuff. So now I have a completed nursery that took me five and a half hours to finish. "I'm in touch with my feminine side." I kneel down on the floor and grab the basket of the bedding I washed in Dreft so I can finish up her crib.

"I see that." He grabs his beer off the changing table and takes a sip. "Nah, this is really nice though. Wilson know you did all this?" I called him to see if he'd help me move all this furniture around. I would've done it all myself but I just felt like if I was alone, I would've cracked and texted or called Jo and I would've been disappointed all over again when she didn't answer. So I called Jackson to see if he wanted to drink some beer and help me out with the nursery…since he's basically a pro at this dad stuff already.

"No…she's still not talking to me." I grab the mattress I picked up today and put the fitted sheet over it. Her bedding is white, brown, pink and yellow with the characters of Winnie the Pooh all over it. "I miss her like crazy." I mumble and pick up the mattress to put it inside the crib. "I was thinkin' about getting her something. I already got her a ring…so I was gonna get her something bigger." I finish making Aubree's crib up and grab my own beer. "…You know how boards are next month?" I take a sip of beer. "…Hunt's doubling my salary. I got an offer from Hopkins…depending on if I pass my boards or not…and Hunt wants to keep me, so he's doubling my salary." I'm not really supposed to tell anyone about that, but my best friend in the entire world isn't speaking to me at the moment, won't even answer my texts…and she's the only person I could confide in. So Avery's next best. "So I was thinking about…maybe…getting her a car. Or do you think that's too…pushy?"

"…A car?!"

"Well yeah…" I sit down in the rocking chair I put in today. "Even if we're not together, I still gotta take care of her. That's still my….baby mama and stuff. Gotta take care of the baby mama, you know? And her car is shit. It breaks down every other day…her battery is shot, her engine's gonna blow the hell up. And she's gonna need a car for when we have the baby…and I don't want her to put my daughter in the deathtrap she's riding around in now." I put the cap back on my bottle and put it down on the floor. "I saw a little Jetta I was thinking about getting her. It's small enough for her…it's a Volkswagen so it's a good car. It's only gonna cost me 25,000…5,000 down." I sigh. "Then I was thinking about giving her mine and getting myself a new one."

"…What has that girl done to you?" He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. "You're gonna get her a car?"

"I told you she's my girl. I gotta take care of my girl." I already know I spoil Jo. Even if we're not together, I'm still gonna spoil her. She's my girl. I bought her shoes, a ring…and somehow, I still don't think I got her enough. "Look…I know it probably seems like I'm trying to buy her back…and I guess I am, in that sense." I shrug. "But it's not just that. I do want her to live comfortably as well. If I'm living good, please believe that Jo's gonna live good too. She's my baby mama. You'd make sure Ape is good too. If you two weren't together, you'd still make sure she was well off…and you know you would."

"Right, but I just don't think buying her a car is the way to get her to talk to you again."

"I'm not trying to buy her back though. I was thinking about getting her a car before she got mad at me. Her car broke down last month and she couldn't afford to get a new battery for it because she wanted to buy the baby's car seat instead. I went online that night and looked up a car for her. But I think I'm gonna give her mine and get myself a new one. Because mine's paid off and I don't want her to get into a car payment when she's already struggling." I sigh. "That's why I wish she would move in with me. You know damn well I'd take care of her. She wouldn't pay shit here. She pays half the rent, her phone bill, the electric…she pays everything over in her place. She wouldn't pay for a damn thing if she lived here. Jo's so independent though…she doesn't know how to let me take care of her."

"You're forgetting one little thing though…"

"What?"

"You two aren't together. You're talking about her like you two are a couple. Didn't you say she hates your guts?"

"Yeah but I'm getting her back." I lean back and rock in the rocking chair. "I just gotta figure out how to do it. But I'm getting her back. I'm thinking…maybe a nice dinner…but that would require her answering my phone calls and talking to me for longer than a minute." I sigh. "I don't know…help me out here. How do you get a girl back? She won't…talk to me. I just need her to talk to me. I'm starting to go nuts." He laughs but I'm dead serious. "I'm serious. I'm starting to feel like one of those psychopaths. One of those… 'if you're not with me, you can't be with nobody' type. I see her every day at work and I feel like picking her up and locking her up in an on-call room until she talks to me."

"Well a car would definitely make her listen to you." He mumbles, sarcastically.

"Forget about the car." I wave my hand at him. "I'm getting her a car regardless. The car is solid. I don't care if she hates me for the rest of my life, she's still getting a car from me. I just need a way to get her back. I need her to see that I don't want Izzie."

"Speaking of Izzie…is she still around?"

"Yeah." I roll my eyes. "…I almost cheated on Jo with her today." I admit, shamefacedly.

"How is it cheating if you're not with her?"

I shrug. "But I did. I haven't had sex in a month. And I was talking to Iz today because I wanted to get her house key back. But we started talking and somehow, we ended up kissing and we were right next to an on-call room. We went in the on-call room and she took off her shirt and I just kissed her boobs and shit…and she started to go down on me but I caught myself almost calling her by Jo's name. I got so close to calling her Jo…" I sigh again. "I gotta get her back." I keep rocking in the chair. "You ever realize that? Like when you were messin' around with Lexie… you ever realize that you don't want anyone else but April?"

"Yep. Except I actually called Lexie by April's name." He sits down on top of a hefty box of diapers and puts his beer down. "I don't know what it is with guys. It's like we don't realize things. I don't know why we have to lose the one we want in order for us to realize how important she is. I don't get why it has to come down to that."

"I don't understand it either." I mumble. "But you got Ape back… how'd you do that?"

"Don't listen to me."

"No seriously…how'd you get her back?"

"...I stood up on her wedding day, remember? I objected…and you definitely don't want to get Jo back by doing that." He offers his little sliver of advice. I put my hand over my face because I really might cry. I had a horrible day, come to think of it. I knew that if I had sex with Izzie today in the on-call room, I would've been okay to do it. It wouldn't be bad because I'm NOT with Jo and that wouldn't be cheating. But what do you do when you're at that point that you don't WANT to have sex with anyone else because it's not the person you want? I messed up so bad with Jo and I'm so scared that I won't get her back. And then after that incident with Iz, Jo was all I could think about. She was on my mind all damn day. Today was horrible. "You know what you could try?"

"What?" I rub my eyes and take my hand away from my face.

"…The elevator. She can't go anywhere, she just has to listen if you trap her in an elevator."


	56. What It Looks Like

"Are you still not gonna tell anyone?" She holds up my scrub top for me so I can do this to myself. Honestly, I'm still not completely comfortable with the idea of having to stab myself in the hip on a daily basis. The idea of giving myself an insulin injection kind of freaks me out to be completely and totally honest. "I think you should tell at least the attendings…just so they know that sometimes you may be a little…off your game." With one of her hands holding onto my shirt, she reaches over on the sink counter with her free hand and grabs one of the Band-Aids I brought from my locker. I really wish she'd stop talking to me while I'm doing this. "It's not like you got diagnosed with a couple cavities in your mouth or a paper cut. You're diabetic…I think people should know…Diabetes is pretty serious, don't you think?"

I count to three in my head and jab the needle into my hip. "I don't really think it's anyone's business that I'm diabetic. That's like telling someone you have AIDS…nobody's gonna care unless it's effecting them directly. Me being diabetic has nothing to do with anything." The needle is so thin that it doesn't hurt when it goes in, but it burns really bad when I push the top of the syringe to inject the insulin inside my body. It burns because the insulin is cold going in. I have to keep my injections in the fridge so they stay fresh so the injections are cold. I push my thumb down on the syringe until it's all emptied out into my bloodstream. I retract the needle and stick it in my pocket until I can throw it in a hazardous waste basket. "It's nobody's business."

Step puts the Band-Aid on my hip over the place I just gave myself the shot and keeps my shirt held up. "That's just a fancy way of saying that you haven't even told Alex yet." She mumbles and grabs a paper towel out of the dispenser and dabs it over my hip. I made myself bleed a little bit and the blood ran down from my hip to my scrub pants. Now there's a little red dot on the waistband of my scrub pants. "If you don't tell anyone, you should definitely tell him. Diabetes is kind of a big thing." She tosses the bloody paper towel away and puts my shirt back down when my hip is all cleaned up. "Is there a reason you refuse to tell him?"

"I just don't think it's necessary for him to know." I turn on the water in the sink so I can wash my hands up. I only just found out about this whole diabetes thing two days ago and Steph's been riding my ass about it already. Even if I did plan on telling Alex that I'm a diabetic, she didn't really give me the chance to tell him yet. I've only known for TWO days. It's not like I've known for a month. "I'm trying to cut him out of my life. I'm trying to completely be done with him and that means that he doesn't have the right to know about everything that goes on in my life anymore. He only needs to know about the things that affect his daughter and that's it. He doesn't need to know anything about me." I dry my hands off on the paper towels and put them inside my pockets. Day by day, it's getting easier to be without him. It was hard at first but now I feel like I'm really okay. I'm okay without Alex. I'm okay. "It's not his business and it's not anyone else's either. I know how to take care of myself like a big girl."

"You know what…" She yanks open the door to the bathroom we're in and holds it open for me. "You can tell me that you don't want him until you're blue in the face but I still don't believe you. You're bitchy without him, you haven't been properly fucked in over a month. You're mean. I used to like single Jo soooo much better than tied down Jo, but I can't take single Jo anymore. You're so mean these days. Just go get back with your man. PLEASE." She starts walking and I walk with her but I don't have much else to say. I thought I was doing well without him. I feel better, I feel stronger…sure I'm horny ALL THE TIME…but I was doing so well I thought. Does she really think I'm being a bitch without him? "I've been trying to be nothing but nice to you but you're so mean to me. You snap at me, you get smart with me…I don't know if you just need dicked down or if you're seriously in this bad of a mood but whatever it is, it needs fixed."

"…Am I really that insufferable?" I look down at the ground while I walk. I must be really bad off. It takes a lot for Steph to start complaining, so I really must be horrible. "…I mean…" I'll just be truthful with her. "I haven't been doing so well with my newfound diabetes, I'm having a hard time coping. And yeah…I'm horny all the time, every second of every day, but I'm living with it. Have I really been that horrible?"

"Nah, not really." She nudges me with her elbow. "But it is noticeable that you're missing Alex. You have been a little…not you." I nod my head. I guess I can agree with that…maybe. "I thought I liked single you better than taken you but no…taken you was a lot…happier. I think you just need to have sex. That'll cure it."

"That's not really the cure for everything. Sex won't cure my broken heart." I lean against the nurses' station and whip out my cell phone because I need to set my alarm for four hours from now. I'm supposed to be giving myself insulin injections once every four hours until my blood sugar normalizes. It's still way too high. I rest on my elbows and scroll through my phone to set the time. "Sex won't make me feel better about the fact that he still called out to her using his dying breath…" I sigh.

"Yeah, but it'll sure as hell make you feel a hell of a lot better." She leans against the nurses' station as well. It's lunch time for the nurses on the ER floor so none of them are around. Steph and I are supposed to be on our lunch break as well but we're not. Steph's not hungry apparently and me? I don't want to be in the same room while Alex stares at me from across the distance and plus, I'm not allowed to eat anything but saltine crackers and water anyway until my glucose is under control. "You can have sex while you're pregnant, you know. Matter of fact, I hear pregnant women need it more than regular women. It's like the hormones make you need it like three thousand times more than you'd need it if you weren't pregnant."

"That's just skanky though." I absentmindedly pick up a butter mint from the candy dish on the nurses' station counter but toss it back in the dish when I realize that I can't have that. It's tough for me to suddenly watch what I put in my mouth. I've been eating what I want, when I want for 28 years and now, all of a sudden, I have to be careful not to eat a cookie or a freaking sugar cube. "I've been thinking about nixing the white coat when I'm around here." I just stare into the dish at all the candy I wish I could eat. "You know how the white coat hides how large and in charge I really am?" I glance over at her and catch a glimpse of her nodding her head. "Yeah, well I've been hit on six times by two different guys within the last week. I've been politely declining but I think it's time for them to just quit asking. I should just tell them to back off because I come with a lot of baggage and I'm not dating right now. I should just walk around with the evidence clearly showing underneath my shirt instead of hiding it underneath all these layers." I mutter.

"I never did understand why you insist on hiding your belly." She reaches in the candy dish and grabs a peppermint. I give her a distasteful look from the corner of my eye to let her know that I don't appreciate being made fun of, because that's exactly what she's doing. She knows I want a piece of candy and I can't have one, so she's teasing me by eating a piece herself. "You have a cute pregnant belly. Some women have ugly ones. Their happy trails are all hairy and dark and it's all stretch mark covered. Your belly is cute. It's all smooth and perfect. Why do you insist on hiding it so much?"

"I just don't want people treating me special just because I'm pregnant." I admit. "So I feel like…maybe if it's not evident, maybe if it's not blatantly obvious that I'm pregnant…they wouldn't treat me so different. But it's not really working so I'm about to just give up. They're keeping me off Peds, off Ortho and off Trauma. I've been on Cardio, Plastics and General for all this time, Steph. I'm getting so bored." I tuck a piece of my bangs behind my ear and sigh. This conversation topic depresses me to think about how much of my education I've missed out on just by being pregnant. "What were we talking about, though?" I swiftly switch the conversation topic.

"Sex." She sucks on her peppermint all obnoxiously. "We were taking about you getting laid…and you needing to get laid. And how you're not getting laid because you think having sex while you're pregnant is skanky. I think you're dumb, by the way."

"No…I don't think it's skanky." I kick my foot back and scratch the back of my calf with the tip of my sneaker. Today's the first day I've worn these sneakers, by the way. They're the ones Alex bought for me. I kept them in the back of my closet because I HATE feeling like he does more for me than I do for him. So I stuck the shoes in the back of my closet and vowed not to wear them until I absolutely needed to wear them. I threw them on this morning and I must say, they're pretty comfortable. I think they have memory foam inside of them. "I think it's skanky to have sex with someone that isn't your baby daddy. Like girls that go out and have sex with men that they're not even pregnant to? Ew, that's skanky. I don't think having sex while you're pregnant is too bad, as long as you're with someone that won't think you're gross."

"I was talking about letting Alex bang you." She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at me like I'm one of her hopeless cases. "I wasn't suggesting for you to go have sex with one of the pervs in this hospital that don't give a shit." Steph's been cussing an awful lot lately. I don't know what her issue could possibly be, but I do know that she never usually has this foul of a mouth. "Believe me, I hear it on a daily basis. Guys talking about how hard they'd do you…guys talking about how sexy you are. It's gross and it's pathetic the way some of the boys around here talk about you." I look down at the floor, blushing. I know that guys around the hospital think I'm attractive. I hear it my damn self. "I was saying that you should go have sex with Alex."

"Okay, but what part of 'I'm trying to cut him out' don't you understand? If I thought that having sex with him WOULDN'T completely ruin all the progress I made without him, don't you think I would've done it already? I'm not ready to take him back, Steph. I'm not…ready for that. I'm not ready for me and him to become a couple again because I'm not ready to trust him again." I bite my lip. "So I was just gonna take you up on the offer to buy me a vibrator, but I realized last night while I was taking a shower that even if you did buy me a dildo, I can't reach over my belly to do anything to myself with it." She starts laughing hard and loud and I gently slap her in her arm. "Stop! It's not funny! …'Cause I actually tried last night. I was…" I just look at her, trying to keep a straight face. "I was so horny Steph. I got so desperate last night and I was like you know what? Lots of women masturbate…so I tried and I failed…miserably. That was my first time ever attempting to masturbate and that was my last."

"…Oh, honey…" Steph's laughing so hard that she has tears running down her cheeks. I poke my lip out and give her the puppy dog eyes. It's really not funny. I was beyond desperate last night. So desperate that I actually cried. When I realized that getting myself off wasn't an option because my belly got in the way, I cried and rolled over and went to sleep. It was a tragic night. "You're in a building full of on-call rooms and supply closets and trauma rooms and bathrooms and locker rooms and lounges. If you don't go find him and drag him some place quiet." She wipes her tears from her cheeks. "You want me to do it? I'll do it. I'll go tell him to meet you somewhere…"

"I can do it myself." I run my hands through my hair and pull it because I'm so frustrated. I'm emotionally frustrated and sexually frustrated and they're both a horrible mix. "I don't want him to think that we're getting back together because we're not. He's just a booty call." I blow out a breath through my lips and pick my head up. "…How do I do it? Do I just walk up to him and be like 'hey let's go, we're going to an on-call room'. Seriously…how do I do this?"

"Just tell him you need his help on like…a consult or something." She picks through the candy dish for another peppermint. "Tell him you've got a kid in the ER that's throwing up blood or something…" She unwraps her candy and pops it in her mouth. "Or you could tell him that you've got this friend…that really needs to get her rocks off."

"Nope." I shake my head. "Nevermind. I can't do this. I'm not doing this. This is why girls have periods. Because Eve was weak." I stomp my foot, still totally and completely frustrated. I don't believe in the bible or anything that goes along with it, but I've heard that theory before. "Eve was weak, Steph…she was weak." I grit my teeth together. "…I need you to talk me into it. Just talk me into it. Please talk me into it."

"Okay." She puts her hands on my shoulders and rubs. "Just think…think about…think about how you feel when you guys kiss. And think about releasing all this pent up frustration you have on him. You could be in bed with him in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Jo. And you could be screaming his name in twenty minutes. Just think that all this pent up frustration could be gone in less than half an hour. You NEED to have sex, Jo. It's a natural thing. And he's your baby daddy…so he's the perfect person. And just cause you sleep with him doesn't mean that you two have to get back together. It just means that you're really horny and you really need him. There's nothing wrong with him being your booty call. You were his booty call a couple times. He might as well be yours for once. There's nothing wrong with it. You need this…" She keeps rubbing my shoulders but I shake my head. "Yes…nod your head, yes. Nod. Don't shake it, nod." I shake it again. "…Does he have a big…junk?"

I take my face out of my hands and look her head in her eyes. "…It's so big." I poke my lip out again. "It really is huge."

"Just think about the junk. Think about the junk. BE the junk. Be the junk…" She rests her chin in the crook of my neck so she can whisper in my ear. "He's just a booty call. This doesn't mean you're getting back together. Just know that. As long as you go into it with that mentality, you'll be fine. You can't go into it thinking that the sex is gonna be the catalyst to put your relationship back together. Go into it thinking that it's just sex. Casual sex." Reluctantly, I nod my head. Okay, I think I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it. "Good job, young grasshopper." She pats my back and I inherently giggle at the fact that she called me "young grasshopper." Steph's so stupid sometimes. "Now march into that cafeteria…walk right over to his table…and you tell him that you need a consult on a kid…and you take him to an on-call room…and you get your business done."

"Okay…" I nod my head and suck it all up. I sling my hands in the pockets of my white coat and walk down the hallway that leads to the cafeteria. I'm just scared that he'll think this means I want to get back together and that's not the case. I'm still not in the right mindset to trust him again and like I said before, I refuse to believe in a relationship where there's no trust. This isn't about us getting back together. This is about me needing to get laid and him being the person to do it. I was nothing but his booty call for the first few weeks of us knowing each other. He can be my booty call for the day. An eye for an eye, right?

I walk into the cafeteria and spot him with my eyes. He's sitting at the table with Dr. Grey and Dr. Yang and Dr. Avery. He's scarfing down a sandwich, it looks like. A sandwich and some water. I keep my hands in my pockets and firmly at my sides as I stride through the various tables and chairs and go over to his table. I can feel the eyes boring into my back form the stares I'm getting. I don't really care at this point though. My mind is on one thing and one thing only. I stand next to his chair and Dr. Grey and Dr. Avery notice me before he does. He's too busy stuffing his face and Cristina's too busy reading a medical magazine. Dr. Grey smiles and waves at me and I nod my head at her. Alex takes her wave as a hint but he still doesn't look up at me. I clear my throat quite obnoxiously. "Dr. Karev…"

He stops mid-bite and looks up at me. I can tell by the look on his face that he definitely wasn't expecting me to be standing here next to him. I don't know who he was expecting, but it damn sure wasn't me. He seems pleasantly surprised, though. "Hey…" He puts down his sandwich on his tray and turns his entire body so he can look at me. His eyes flash down to my belly then back at my face. My eyes go directly to his lips. His soft, sexy lips…I wanna kiss those lips. S_tick to the script, though. Stick to what Steph said. _"What do you…need?" I watch his hand reach out to grab mine but he pulls back, innocently.

"…I need a consult." I manage to choke out. "I have this…this kid. In the ER. He's…throwing up blood. I think it could be…liver failure but I'm not sure. I need a consult." I feel awful for lying to him.

"Okay, fine… lemme finish eating. I'll be there in ten minutes." He sighs, disappointed and picks up his sandwich again. "Gimme ten minutes."

"No Alex…NOW." I clear my throat again after I say that. I don't think I can wait ten minutes. I need him NOW if you know what I mean. "I need the consult right now."

His face softens and he catches the gist that I'm quite serious. "…Alright." He stands up and picks up his tray. I feel a sense of relief, a sense of comfort just wash over me. I did it. I did the hard part. I lied to him and that was the hard part. This next part is easy. I step aside and wait for him to throw his stuff away so I can lead him to the nearest on call room I can find. He tosses his stuff in the trashcan and follows me out the cafeteria. "Did you run labs? Get an abdominal CT?"

"No." I shake my head and round the corner. At this point, he should get that we're not going to the ER. He should get that. "Just…follow me, okay?" I'm not proud of what I'm about to do, but oh well. It's gonna happen and it's whatever. I don't care anymore. I find on-call room number three and twist the door handle to see if it's locked. It's open, thank god.

"Consult in an on-call room?" His tone reads confusion. He shuffles into the on-call room and stands there. I shut the door behind us and lock it. "Jo, what's all this about? Why'd you lie to me?"

"Because." I turn off the lights so it's relatively dark in the room and start by taking off my white coat. "I don't have time to explain things to you, Alex. I don't have time to explain things and do what I want to do, so either you let me explain what I'm doing or you take off your pants…it doesn't matter to me." I untie the drawstrings on my pants. He's standing by the door with a dumb look on his face. "…I've never been so serious in my life, Alex. Take off your shirt or your pants, I don't care. Take something off."

"…Is this a booty call?" He asks me, confusion clear in his voice. Like I asked though, he unties his pants too and drops them.

"Call it whatever you want." I slip my thumbs underneath the rims of my underwear and slide them down as well. He pulls his shirt off over his head and tosses it to the floor. Through his boxers, I can see his bulge growing and oh my god…I'm so wet. I'm keeping my shirt on though. I feel so huge. I literally feel way too big to take my shirt off. He walks towards me and immediately gives me a kiss on my lips. My tongue meets his tongue and I can't even explain the feeling I have inside my body. I feel like I'm exploding. Like every emotion is just exploding all at once. Dear god, I missed kissing him. I missed kissing him so much. I unconsciously moan into his mouth at the way I missed kissing him and bring my arms up to wrap them around his neck. I keep kissing him hard, never wanting to break the kiss. He busily takes his boxers off. He puts his hands flat against my ass and kisses me hard, like he means it.

He moves the kiss from my lips to my neck and sucks below my earlobe. He puts his hands underneath my legs and picks me up. I wrap my legs around his waist and curl my fingers through his hair. I could just fucking cry right now. I can't handle this. I'm holding my baby in my arms right now, he's kissing me and I'm about to melt into a puddle of my feelings. God, I missed him. "I miss you…" He mumbles into my neck and puts my back against the wall. "I miss you so much." He's so careful not to put any weight on my stomach as he pins me against the wall by my legs. I reach back and pull my hair out of the ponytail I had it in. He puts his face back into the crook of my neck and takes complete control by not even giving me a warning when he pushes himself inside of me, down below.

I let a moan escape my throat. "Uhhh…" I grab onto his back and squeeze his skin. "Ohh….I missed you too…" I keep my legs wrapped around his waist and curl my fingers through his hair. No, see? See, this is why I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to do this. I knew I was gonna do this. He starts moving in and out and I can't help but moan. My toes even curl under because he feels so fucking good but I can't…I didn't want to do this. I miss him so much. I miss him and I knew that if I had sex with him, I'D be the weak one. And I am. I'm so weak. I just want my baby back. I want my baby back and I'm tired of being without him. "Ohh…fuckkk…" I grip his back some more. My emotions are all messed up. I'm moaning and enjoying the hell out of the fact that I'm having sex with him, but tears are sliding out of my eyes.

He puts his hands on my hips to keep himself from putting his weight against my stomach and sucks on my neck while he keeps thrusting in and out. He's grunting himself, so I can tell that we were on the same page with this. He needed this just as much as I did. He slides his hands through my hair and keeps pumping his bottom half in and out at a soft, steady pace. I can't stop crying. I feel his breath against my neck and I hear the sounds of his grunts filling the room as well as my moans and I can't stop crying right now. This is how it should be…you know? I should be having sex with the father of my baby. I should be feeling like I'm in love with this man. This is how it should be… and this is how it's not. I want him back. But I can't trust him. But I want him back. But I can't trust him… And as if he can read my thoughts… he kisses from the nape of my neck and up to my ear and presses his lips to my ear lobe. "I love you…"

I sniff and I think I just blew it. He didn't know I was crying…but he knows now. "I love you too…" I mumble through thick, runny tears. He gives me a kiss on my cheek and pulls back, away from me. "No…no, don't stop." I grab his back and try to pull him back towards me but he resists. He uses his muscles to stay away from me. "No…No, continue. Continue…." My chest hiccups and tears just pour out. He holds onto my waist and lowers me down on the ground after he pulls out. "NO….Alex…" I clasp my hands over my face and just cry. I don't want him to get the wrong idea. I'm not crying because this is horrible, I'm crying because I love this and I love him and I want him back but I'm so confused about it. "…You don't have to stop…"

"…What'd you call me in here for then?" He sounds really mad and this is NOT what I wanted. This is the last thing I wanted. "If you didn't want to do this…if you're just gonna go back to hating me…"

"Alex, that's not what I did this for…" I stand up and grab my underwear. I slide my underwear up on my waist. "Will you please just listen to me?"

"I'm tired of listening to you. Why should I listen to you when you don't listen to me? You don't listen to me. You don't answer my texts, my calls…no, you just call me in here to fuck you…then you cry about it?" He puts his boxers back on as well. "I love you, Jo…. I do. But you drive me fucking nuts."

"…So I'm listening." I put my pants on and sit down on the floor with my face in my hands. "I'm listening…"

"Oh, you're listening?" He stands in front of me. I nod my head. "…What do I gotta do to get you to take me back?" He starts. I just listen. "…I don't want to do this. I really don't. I did this because it's what you wanted and Jo, I would do anything to make you happy…you hear me? I would do anything to make you happy. But I didn't wanna do this. I'll never want this. You're more to me than a quickie in an on-call room, babe and you NEVER forget that. You're not this to me. You're not a quickie to me. I didn't want to do this." I just sniff and nod my head. "I don't want to be the couple that gets it in in the on-call room and that's it. I wanna be the couple that makes it. I wanna be… I wanna be frickin' Kepner and Avery." I crack a smile at that. "This whole… month and a half without being with you… I can't do this Jo. Matter of fact, I WON'T do this. We gotta stop playing games. We gotta stop doing this. Get up, Jo. Get up…" I do as he says and stand up off the floor. He grabs me by my arms and pulls me into his embrace. "Seriously…stop bullshitting. You know where you stand in my life. I don't…I don't give a fuck about Izzie. I don't give a fuck about what I said while I was…dying. You know where you stand in my life. You know…and you know you know. You KNOW damn well you're more to me than anything else in this world. You know that." He puts his hand on my chin. "Look at me…" I look in his eyes. "You know where you stand…so stop putting me through this. Stop…putting yourself through this. You know I love you. So take me back…"

I sigh and put my arms around his waist and squeeze. I rest my head on his chest and just squeeze. I think I've got my baby back. I think he's my baby again and I feel so…good. I squeeze him tighter, just so the fact that I have him seems that much more real. "…I love you." I mumble into his chest and just take his scent in. My baby…I got my baby back. "And I missed you." I mumble again. He squeezes me just as tight. I bawl my hand up into a fist and punch his buttcheek though. "Asshole. Don't ever…" I pull away from him. "Don't ever fucking scare me like that." Now that we're back together it seems…I have a lot of bones to pick with him. "Don't ever get yourself shot, you ass. Don't ever scare me like that. I thought I lost you and you scared the living SHIT out of me. You asshole. And for GOD'S sake…" I slap him in his chest as well. "Don't let me catch you walking around with a fucking BULLET in your chest. Are you crazy?"

He chuckles. "…I love you babe." He kisses the top of my head.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"Yeah man…I got her back." I adjust my arm underneath the baby's body and stick my tongue out to make a funny face at him. He's a real cute kid. He's got a pale white skin complexion and soft, curly hair. He's a very odd mixture, though. It's weird because he's bright, pasty white like Kepner but when you look at the kid, you can tell that he's mixed. His hair is soft and straight on the sides but towards the middle where his hair gets thicker, it's curlier and kinkier like Jackson's hair. And he has really pretty, blue/green eyes to offset his light, sandy brown hair. He's such a cute kid. "And I didn't have to use an elevator to do it." I wink at him and stroke my finger along the baby's chubby, soft cheek. "Got her back today, actually."

"Oh really? How'd you do it then?" Jackson whips around the residents' lounge, packing up his stuff for the night. Kepner's working late so he's taking his kid home by himself. I can't wait to hold Aubree. And him and Kepner have so much fun parading little Harper around to show him off. I wanna show Aubree off. I'm getting so anxious to have my baby girl in my arms. So anxious. "Did you go the more traditional route of locking her in an on-call room? Because I still say the elevator was way more ethical."

"Something like that." I move Harper's head to make sure it's supported. He's a pretty fat baby and it's cute. I'm pretty sure Ape breastfeeds him and breastfed babies are always chunky. Aubree will probably be chubby. God, I can't wait for Aubree. "She came to find me for a booty call. You know…pregnancy hormones. Yeah, she came to find me to get her rocks off and I took the opportunity to tell her how I felt. And I got her back." I take my hand away from Harper's butt and stroke his hair. I love his hair. "She's coming over my house tonight, 'cause we still got some shit to discuss but I got her back."

I'm so glad I got my Jo back. I got my Jo back and I'm never letting her go again. The month I spent without her was absolute hell. I missed her every second of every day and I can't do that again. I can't live without Jo again. I'm way too weak to live without her. And I missed so much of Aubree. Jo doesn't look really big but I know that Aubree has grown. I missed so much. I missed her first kicks, her first hiccups, her first rolls… I missed everything. Jo's coming over tonight and I'm doing some much needed daddy time. After I show her the nursery I finished and after we talk about the stuff we have to talk about, I plan on laying on her belly for at least an hour and catching up with my baby girl. Jo's going on 23 weeks now, which means Aubree can hear me when I talk to her. I need some Aubree time and after my Aubree time, me and Jo have some unfinished business to tend to. My night is booked and I couldn't be happier.

"That's good, man. Really it is." Avery shoves a bottle into the diaper bag and zips it up. "I'm telling you, there's nothing like coming home after a long day and doing your daddy duties. It's the best feeling. And it's even better because I get to come home to April too. I'm glad you and Wilson worked it out…because there's nothing like seeing your girl and your kid…it's a great feeling, I'm telling you."

"Yeah…now I'm just anxious to meet my little girl." I admit. "…Make sure you teach your guy to have some manners… 'cause if Aubree's gonna date anyone, it's gotta be Harp." I meant what I said to Jo earlier in the on-call room. I do want to be the next April and Jackson. I want to do everything they're doing. I want my baby with her and I want to be able to go visit my girl in the daycare the way Avery visits his boy. I want us to figure it all out and eventually, I want to marry my Jo. I want us to be April and Jackson and that's the truth.

"You know I'll teach him the right thing." He reaches over and very gently lifts Harper from my arms. "You make sure Wilson teaches your girl how to…not be high maintenance."

"Well Jo's high maintenance her damn self, so…" I laugh. "Aubree's pretty hopeless."

**X X X **

"...This is so beautiful." Jo's just standing outside the nursery, staring inside in awe. She won't come through the door, but I'm showing her around anyway. I turn on the big light instead of the little lamp I had on in the corner. "…Baby…" Her voice is cracking. "I'm gonna cry…" She walks inside slowly and looks around. "I'm gonna cry. Alex…" She walks over to the crib and looks inside of it. She pushes down on the bedding, testing it's softness. "…And it all matches. It's all Winnie the Pooh…" She picks up the tree-shaped pillow that came along with the bedding I bought and squeezes it. "…I can't believe you did all this." She walks from the crib over to the changing table.

"Yep." I'm so proud of myself. Her nursery is beautiful, if I do say so myself. You would've thought that this room was always a nursery. I painted the walls a dark, hot pink color and I trimmed the baseboards and the topboards in brown. There's a Winnie the Pooh border going all around the perimeter of her room, and right above her crib are wooden letters that I painted brown, that spell out "A-U-B-R-E-E." I painted the rocking chair brown to match everything and her crib is dark brown wood and so is the changing table. Her nursery is just very nice and I can't believe I did it myself. "And I hooked up your pump…" I go over to the rocking chair and point to the little stand that I bought specifically for breastfeeding purposes. "I put the pump by the chair so you'll be comfortable while you're pumping and while you're nursing her. And look in her dresser…"

She goes over to the dresser and pulls open a drawer. I filled up all the drawers in her dresser with socks, onesies, dresses, headbands, pants…you name it, I bought it. I really did go all out for my baby girl. "Alex…" She closes the dresser and goes to the changing table to open up the drawers underneath the changing table. They're filled with diapers of different sizes, Destin diaper cream, powder… "Come here." She walks over to me and hugs me tight. "Baby, thank you. Thank you…." She stands on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. "I can't believe you did all of this…thank you."

"You don't have to thank me. It's all for my baby girl…you know? Anything for Aubree." I kiss the top of Jo's head and rub her back. "Are you excited? To meet her?"

"…I'm kinda just sick of being pregnant." She murmurs. "…I'm gonna go take a shower. Then I wanna organize some of her clothes… I want some of her stuff in the closet because I have a butt load of shit at my house to put in these drawers."

"Alright…go shower." I slap her ass but not hard enough to hurt her. She softly swings back at me and sticks her tongue out as she walks to the bathroom. I'm glad she likes the nursery. I'm glad she likes it and I'm just glad to have her back. I'm so glad to have her back. My house has been so empty and so lonely for the past month or so. Really. I've been sleeping alone, I've woken up alone….I've been so lost without her. It's like Jo just brings this life back into my world. She brings so much to my life and I was so lost without her. I can't ever lose her again. I can't let that happen. I hear the bathroom door shut behind Jo and I just stick around in the nursery for a little while.

It's hard to believe that in a little while, my very own, brand new baby girl will be sleeping in this crib. She'll be filling this room with her giggles, her cries… I'm gonna be a dad. No hyperbole, today has been the best day of my life so far. I got Jo back. I really thought all hope of ever having her back was lost and I got her. She's back. She's in my shower. She's…back. I got my girl back. I just can't believe it. With a smile on my face, I turn off the lights in Aubree's room and shut the door behind myself. I'm gonna go shave while Jo's in the shower so I don't have to shave when I get out of my shower. Joyfully, I go into my room and go straight for the bathroom door. I twist the bathroom door open and push but when I open it up, Jo jumps back and tries to play like she wasn't doing anything.

But I swear I just saw her with her body twisted, pulling down her waistband and giving herself a shot in her ass. Is she…taking steroids? Is she doing drugs? "Do you…have to use the bathroom?" She plays it off like she didn't do anything and sways back and forth on her feet. Is she fucking serious? What the hell, man. What the hell. She's doing something this fucking STUPID…while she's pregnant…with MY baby? ! I'm gonna…I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill her. I take a moment to register what I saw though. She was definitely giving herself a shot in her ass. "I was just…I'm getting in the shower." She keeps her one hand closed and turns to start the shower water but I go AFTER her. I'm seeing red right now. I'm so livid. I can't believe her.

"Are you stupid Jo?! ARE YOU STUPID?!" I lose my damn mind and grab ahold of her arms. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! DO YOU KNOW HOW STUPID STERIODS ARE?! DO YOU…THIS BETTER NOT BE….WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, JO?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO OUR CHILD?!" I grip her arms so tight and shake her. "ARE YOU STUPID?!" She looks away from me and down at the floor. "NO JO, LOOK AT ME!"

"Let go of me…Alex, it's not what you think…"

"WHAT IS IT THEN?! BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SHOOTING YOURSELF UP!" I grab the hand that she has the syringe in. "LET ME SEE IT!" She pulls her hand away from me. "LET ME SEE IT JO, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL KILL YOU… YOU'RE FUCKING WITH MY BABY'S HEALTH!"

"Will you just calm down!?" She rips her hand away from me and looks like she just wants me to calm down. "Alex…"

"CALM DOWN?! JO, OUR DAUGHTER…"

"I know, okay? I know…and if you'd let me explain…"

"EXPLAIN WHAT?! THAT YOU'RE DOING DRUGS? OR USING STERIODS?! WHICH ONE IS IT, JO? BECAUSE BOTH ARE PRETTY FUCKING HORRIBLE!"

"Alex, it's insulin!" She puts her hands up at me to calm me down and hands me the syringe she was just sticking herself with. "It's insulin…baby, see? It's just insulin…" I snatch it off her and look at it. I read the label on it. It's prescribed to Josephine Wilson, yes. And it does say insulin. 5g of insulin is in this syringe. Damn…. but why is she taking insulin? Why wouldn't she tell me? "I wasn't gonna tell you because I don't want you to worry but it's just insulin. It's not what you think…" She pulls her waistband of her pants down and shows me. Her hip is decorated with little pink dots. "I…I got diagnosed two days ago at my last visit." She sounds oddly optimistic. "I'm diabetic…insulin dependent for now, until I get my levels under control. But I have diabetes. That's all…it's just insulin."

She has diabetes? And I wasn't there? She must've been so scared. To be diagnosed with a disease like diabetes all alone. She must've been scared to death. She was all alone. "….Gestational?" I take the cap off the needle. She nods her head. I brush my fingers along the many pink dots she has on her hip from sticking herself. Her hip is starting to turn purple from all the sticking. "…I'm sorry, babe." I mutter and toss the cap away. I was such a dick. But it looked really bad… and she should've told me that she has diabetes. She should've told me…

"It's okay. I know what that probably looked like." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you." I put my hands on her shoulder and turn her around. She turns without a complaint and stays quiet.

"That's dangerous, you know…" I lift up her shirt and pull down her pants. "Here… lemme show you a trick…." I pinch some of her skin. "You pinch the skin first, it'll hurt less…." I stick the needle in her hip and I feel her weight shift as she jumps from the pain but she takes it. "That didn't hurt that bad, did it?" She shakes her head. "Gestational diabetes can be real dangerous. Why didn't you tell me when you first got diagnosed?" She shrugs her shoulders. I pull the needle out of her hip. "You see a dietician and stuff?"

"Yeah. I'm not allowed to have any sugar until my levels get under control. I'm not really supposed to eat anything but saltines and water." She pulls her pants back up. "I saw the dietician yesterday. She gave me this whole list of meals that I should eat." She rubs her eyes. "And that's why I haven't been gaining any weight…because my body's glucose intolerant."

"Yeah that makes sense." I throw away the needle in the garbage can. "I'm sorry I snapped out."

"It's okay. I would've freaked out and jumped to conclusions too…" She kisses my cheek. "It's okay."

I'm still just glad to have her back.

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN:** In the next chapters, things are gonna go really fast. I know this chapter probably seemed like it went from one extreme to the next with Jo and Alex just getting back together then spending the night together and stuff and I'm sorry if that's at all unrealistic to you. As you guys know, I pride myself on making my stories as realistic as possible and I'm sorry if any of this seems unrealistic or too fast or whatever, but I'm under time constraints now. I don't want this story to get ridiculously long and I still have yet to even make Aubree be born yet so that's why things are moving quickly. I swear I'll try to make these next four chapters as realistic as possible but it's gonna go really quickly because I REALLY want Aubree to be born by chapter 60, that way I can have like 10-15 chapters AFTER her birth to go into Alex and Jo being parents before I decide that the story's over.

So with that being said, I had every intention on doing holidays. I was gonna take care of Thanksgiving and Christmas but I'm not gonna do that anymore. And I'm not gonna make Jo go visit Ms. Schmitt like I mentioned in the earlier chapters and I'm not gonna have Jo spend Thanksgiving with Steph's family. I would love to do both of those scenarios, but like I said, I just can't with the time constraints anymore. So I'm nixing holidays and I'm nixing this storyline I had with Brynn as well. Brynn got adopted out, by the way. I will be going into Jo's reaction over Brynn getting adopted but I had a whole storyline planned out that I'm just nixing now.

I do plan on making Aubree's birth really detailed, special, emotional and VERY realistic. I've already drafted out the first couple thousand words of Aubree's birth and it's really beautiful so far, if I do say so myself. So even though I'm nixing storylines and holidays, I will make sure Aubree's birth is special. I promise.

Okay, and on my tumblr (flawlesspeasant . tumblr . com), I added a page. The page is entitled "Just So You Know". If you click on the link to go to that page, you'll find two pictures. You'll find a picture of the baby I had in mind back when I was describing "Nathan" in Jo's dream and you'll find the picture of Aubree's nursery I had in mind when I was describing it in this chapter.

So ugh... bear with me guys. I'm sorry I got so out of hand with the story and now I'm rushing so I'm nixing storylines and stuff. I'm really sorry. But I got way too out of hand with the chapters because I have so much fun writing this story.


	57. Got It Down

"Wilson, you can just run this sample up to the lab for me and then you're free to go." Dr. Bailey seals the cap on the vial of blood she just drew from one of her comatose patients and hands it to me. I grab a plastic bag out of the supply drawer and put the blood inside of it for safekeeping. I have half a mind to tell her that I'm free to do anything else she wants me to. I'm really not ready to go home yet. I just want to stay and get my hands bloody, if you know what I mean. I haven't even sniffed the inside of an OR in so long. I'm starting to forget why I even wanted to be a surgeon in the first place. I just want to do surgery…that's all I want to do and I can't. At my last visit to Dr. Maxwell's office, she did both a weight check and a blood sugar check. My blood sugar was really good because I actually have been sticking to the diet the dietician told me to stick to. But my weight was still down. I gained about seven pounds total, which isn't bad considering that I've been struggling my entire pregnancy to gain weight. But that's still not where I should be, and for that reason, Dr. Maxwell put me on light work duty. I'm only allowed to work seven hour shifts and I'm supposed to go STRAIGHT home to be on very strict bed rest. Honestly? I was just gonna disregard the fact that I'm on bed rest. Who cares, right? Wrong. Alex cares. And Alex took it upon himself to tell every single attending that I'm on light work duty and I have low blood sugar and all that stuff…so every attending is in cahoots with one another and they only let me work seven hours.

"Thank you." I use my polite voice as I seal the plastic bag up. "See you tomorrow, Dr. Bailey." I open up the door to the room we're standing in and leave out of it. I guess deep down inside somewhere, I should be thanking Dr. Maxwell for putting me on light duty. I've actually got a lot of stuff done since I'm done working by at least 3:00 in the afternoon anymore. Most of the time, I go home after work because at 32 weeks, I do tend to get tired easily. I'm always tired anymore. So I usually go home and sleep until at least 6:00 or 7:00. So lately, since I've been home in the evenings, I haven't been taking naps. Instead, I busied myself with setting up a bassinet in my bedroom and finding extra space for diapers. I've been doing a project a day to prepare for Aubree. Yesterday, I washed all her blankets and her bedding in baby-safe laundry detergent and made sure her bassinet is comfortable enough for her. Tonight, my project is to wash all her clothes at my house since Alex already washed the ones at his house. I'm gonna wash her clothes and I'm gonna soak her bottles in bleach for a couple hours before I wash them up for her.

I put my hand on the railing and climb up the steps to go to the lab. There are still a lot of things I haven't figured out yet but rather than stress myself out, I'm just gonna play them by ear. Like this whole birth plan thing? I'm not making one of those. I'll do whatever I need to do when I get to the point of having my baby. And Alex has been bugging me lately about what we're doing when it's time to bring her home. He wants to know if she'll be coming home to his house or to mine, which is just a beat-around-the-bush way of asking me if I've changed my mind about moving in with him and no, I haven't. I'm just gonna play things off by ear. Truthfully? It's not real to me yet. I feel Aubree move every day. I feel her kick me, I feel her elbow me, I feel her get the hiccups. But it hasn't fully occurred to me yet that I'm carrying a little girl in my body that's coming out in eight weeks. The thought just really hasn't processed in my mind yet. And I know I should be thinking about these things. I should be thinking about what I'm gonna do when I have this baby but I'm not. I don't know if something's wrong with my brain, but I'm just not even thinking that far ahead yet. I walk over to the drop off station of the lab and look at the blood inside the plastic bag to make sure the blood is labelled correctly and addressed to go back to Dr. Bailey. It's addressed right, so I put it in the drop box and put my hands in my pockets to walk away.

Before I leave, I'm gonna go tell Alex that I'll be over his house later. He'll probably have an attitude about it, like he usually has an attitude. He always gets mad at me when I'm not going immediately to his house. He wants me to move in with him so bad but I just don't see the point. I like things the way they are right now. I like living with Steph and it's not a big deal for me to keep driving over Alex's house every night. He kills me trying to fix things that aren't even broken. If this whole back and forth thing is working for us and we're happy with it, why does it have to change? Frankly, I don't think me and Alex need to live together. I think if we lived together, he'd get annoyed with the way I leave my hair in the shower. He wouldn't like the fact that I don't put the cap back on the toothpaste and I lock the doors at all times. And I'd be annoyed with the way he thinks it's okay to just put his dirty clothes anywhere. We don't need to live together. Living together would be the worst thing for us. We spent a month apart and I realized that I can't be without him and he realized that he can't be without me either. We've been back together for going on two months now and it's been so good. We haven't fought much and everything is finally falling pack into place, the way it was before he got shot and before Izzie came back and before we broke up. I don't know why he insists on ruining EVERYTHING by wanting me to move in. Luckily, we haven't actually argued about him pressuring me to move in with him, but I feel it coming. Every time he asks me if I'm coming home with him or whatever and I say no, I see it in his face that he's annoyed. I feel like it's gonna escalate into an argument sooner or later.

Instinctively, I rest my hand on my belly while I walk down the steps. I'm always super careful walking up and down the steps these days. Since my belly's gotten bigger, I've been feeling clumsier and I've come close to taking a couple falls. I'm just careful…or at least I try to be. I round the corner to walk to the residents' lounge, since that's most likely where Alex is. I pull the door open and walk inside, but of course, he's not even in here…which honestly annoys me. I don't know why I'm annoyed, I just am. That's usually the case these days. I get annoyed for the littlest reasons. So Alex isn't in here, and the only person that is in here is Dr. Kepner. She's holding her baby in her arms and flipping through a magazine before she looks up at me. "…Sorry, Dr. Kepner." I apologize. "…I'm just looking for…" I switch the weight off my back leg and put it on my front leg. "Do you know where Alex is? By any chance?"

"Hey, Jo." She sits up in her chair, wary of the tiny body resting on her chest and smiles. "No, actually…I haven't seen Alex. The last time I saw him was this morning." She offers and I roll my eyes. He's usually in the lounge around this time. Of course the one day I actually need him to be in here, he's not. I hold back another eye roll and turn to leave. "Wait, Jo!" April calls back after me, so I turn back around and raise my eyebrows at her to let her know I'm listening. "Are you busy?" I shake my head. "Come sit down then…I want to ask you about something…" I release the door so it can shut behind me and walk over to the table she's sitting at. "Sit." She says, like I'm a dog. I pull out the chair across from her and sit down. It's just a habit, but things are running through my head. Things that I could've possibly done wrong to warrant a good "talking to." It's a habit of mine that I've had for a really long time. "I've been meaning to ask you, but it's been slipping my mind…" I nod my head and just listen. My eyes are totally fixated on the sweet little, chubby faced baby on her chest. He's so cute and oh so sweet. I love his little hair. It's so cute. "Harper's growing like a little weed and I have a bag of newborn clothes and a perfectly good box of newborn size diapers. Jackson wanted to just throw them out but..." Her eyes trace mine down to the baby but I can't look away. I've seen him from a distance. I saw him when he was a newborn, actually. But this is the first time I've seen him up close. I didn't realize how perfect he was. "I know you're having a little girl, but most of Harper's newborn clothes are gender neutral since we didn't know what we were having. If you're interested…" Her eyes follow mine and go down to her baby. "…Do you wanna…hold him or something?" I unconsciously nod. _Since when am I mesmerized by babies? I remember when babies scared me…and now I can't stop staring at April's baby. He's so perfect though. _She stands up and leans across the table, handing me her boy.

I put my hands around his little torso and hold him gently, but firm enough that he's not gonna fall. Naturally, I lay him right in the crook of my arm to support his head and put my other arm underneath his body. I could cry, that's how cute this baby is. He's so chubby and his skin is perfect. His skin is pale white and his cheeks are so fat. "Hello….hi…" I nestle my finger into his hand and he squeezes it. His eyes are open and he's staring up at me with the prettiest, piercing blue/green eyes. His eyelashes are so long and he's just so perfect. "…He's so cute." I can't stop staring at him. "Yeah, you're cute. You really are…you're so cute." I stroke his cheek with my finger. "How old is he now? Three months? …He's way too perfect…"

"Yeah, he'll be three months in two days." She reaches her hand out and strokes his hair. "And I know." She folds her hands underneath her chin and just stares at him right along with me. "I still get psyched out when I think that me and Jackson did that. He's cute, isn't he? Me and Jackson didn't do half bad…" She sounds completely mesmerized. "…So yeah, I actually have a bunch of stuff. Clothes, diapers…" I'm listening to her but I'm so enchanted by this little baby in my arms. If I feel like this when I have Aubree… "Jackson says we should just throw 'em all out but I can't think about just throwing out all that money. Diapers aren't cheap and the clothes he can't fit are all so cute. I told him I'd see if you and Alex would appreciate them. Some of the onesies he only wore once…and I missed your shower, so I figure giving you a crap load of clothes is the least I can do."

"I'll take them." I nod my head and keep looking at the baby. He loosens his grip on my finger then retightens it…and that makes my heart melt. He's so sweet. "I'm not having a baby shower though. Stephanie was gonna throw me one but…I'm not really into it." I say to her, which isn't a lie. I'm not really a baby shower kind of girl and I don't know enough people to invite to a baby shower. And I don't really like the idea of having people buy me things for my baby when I haven't even bought much for her. Macho man Alex who can't help but spoil "his baby girl" already bought mostly everything anyway. He bought her everything she needs already, which is annoying. I feel like an inadequate mother, but whatever. I can't afford to go out every paycheck and buy stuff. "Me and Alex already bought her a bunch of clothes but I don't think we bought her enough t-shirts and onesies and stuff. We bought her…" Little Harper's eyes are getting heavy and he's starting to close them. I put my hands underneath his armpits and lift him up so I can lie him down comfortably. "A lot of dress clothes. Like cute clothes and stuff but she doesn't have many pajamas…I was washing her clothes up last night and I noticed that." I feel Harper's pacifier bobbing up and down against my neck. And I don't know how to explain it…I don't know how to describe this feeling I have in my chest, but something inside me just knows to lift him up and let him lie his head on my shoulder. And I pat his butt. "Someone's sleepy…" I rest my cheek against his soft, curly hair. "Yeah…goodnight, honey…" I rub his back then go back to patting his butt. "…You don't mind if he falls asleep, do you?"

"Not at all." She shakes her head and pulls her cell phone out of her pocket. "It's good that you guys need pajamas and lounge clothes for her, because all the onesies I have are mostly pajamas." She's texting someone on her phone and I'm glad, because that means she won't be trying to take her sweet little son off of me any time soon. He's the sweetest little thing. I think I might've just fallen in love with this little boy and if I feel anything like this when I have my baby girl then somebody's gonna have a really hard time getting her off of me. Seriously…I imagine that this feeling I have while holding Harper will be a lot worse when I have Aubree in my arms and if that's the case, it's going to be a BITCH getting her off me. "I have a great big box of diapers too. They're the newborn ones. He grew out of them within like…two weeks, but your little girl's probably gonna be a lot smaller than he is. He was a big baby to begin with."

"Yeah, my doctor's not expecting her to be any bigger than five pounds or so. She's gonna be a tiny little thing." Harper kicks his pacifier out of his mouth and it falls down and lands on top of my big belly. I catch it before it falls any further and just let him sleep on my chest. "He seems like a good baby…is he good?" I can't help myself…so I reach over with my hand and comb my fingers through his hair. I really hope Aubree has some hair. Me and Alex both bought her a shitload of bows and little hair barrettes to wear…I'll be so pissed if she comes out like a little bald bird. "How does he…sleep and stuff?" I rest my chin against his head. "Can you tell me what to expect in eight weeks?"

"I think it depends on the baby, really." She puts her phone back away so she can talk to me without any interruptions. "Like with him… I'm nursing him, so he's on a real strict feeding schedule. He eats like every four hours but I make sure I pump because me and Jackson take turns waking up with him and most of the time when he wakes up during the night, he wants to be fed. He can be fussy at times but for the most part, he's good. He cries when he's hungry mostly. Sometimes he'll scream when his diaper's dirty. It depends on the baby. But if your baby's like him, I would expect…sleeplessness." She's brutally honest with me and I like it that way. I don't want people to sugarcoat it. "He's three months old now and me and Jackson are still figuring out how to deal with him sometimes. It's something new every day with him. Like this week, he's fighting bottles. He'll only take milk if I nurse him…it's something new constantly."

"Okay." I can handle that. Sleeplessness, I mean. I expected to be tired. I know babies are horrible sleepers. I'm okay with being tired. And Alex will help me. And I'll just take a hint from April and make sure I pump so he doesn't have to wake me up in the middle of the night to nurse her. Okay. I can do that. "…How did you deal when you went back to work? I'm most nervous about that, I think." Harper starts to move a little bit and that natural feeling thing just kicks in again and I nonchalantly start to rock from side to side with him. "Because I want to come back to work ASAP. Like…as soon as I'm feeling better after having her, I wanna get back to work. I don't care about putting her in daycare or anything like that. I want to come back to work like…the week after I have her if I can. And I'm most nervous that I won't be able to. Like…how long did it take you to bounce back? How long were you feeling like crap after having him?"

"I felt better within a few days. I was still sore between my legs, of course. But I felt better within a couple days. You'll feel better after a shower, really. And I felt okay to come back to work within a week. But trust me…" She reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder to let me know that what she's about to say is imperative. "You're not gonna want to go back to work within a week. Trust me, Jo. You say that now, but leaving your baby isn't gonna be an option. You're gonna want to take a maternity leave. I'm telling you. You're gonna feel like an animal." I look up at her and question what she means just by one look. "It's a weird thing that comes over you. Listen to me." I nod, listening intently. "You're gonna feel like an animal. You're not even gonna want to think about somebody else touching your baby. And when you don't have her in your arms, you're gonna go crazy. And when you do go back to work, she's all you're gonna think about. You're gonna worry yourself to death. And you're gonna snap at anyone that even suggests that maybe you should back off so much. It's animalistic, what happens to you when you become a momma bear. You say now that you want to go back to work ASAP, but when you have your baby, you're gonna freak at the thought. Believe me."

"Really?" As much as I want to believe her, I don't think that's gonna happen. I don't think it's gonna be the case for me. The difference between me and April is that she always wanted her baby. She always wanted her baby and her baby wasn't an accident. And both she and her HUSBAND are financially stable to take off work. Not to mention, both she and her husband come from good people and good parents that showed them how to be good parents. Me? I'm running on fumes here. I'm just guessing how to take care of a baby. I never wanted to have a baby and I'm not cut out for motherhood. She might be a "momma bear", but I'm not. I just don't see myself being as good a mother as April is, you know? "I mean… when I have her… I'm having her in the beginning of May. Which means I have the rest of May and the beginning of June to prepare to pass my intern exam. And not to mention, Alex is taking his boards towards the end of May as well. I just don't have the time to take off insane amounts of time all because I had a baby. I'm still planning on balancing a baby and my career."

"…If you want, I could always help you study for your exam and stuff." She shrugs. "Like if you need a tutor or someone to help you study. Or if you need me to watch your baby while you study. I'll help you out as best as I can. I'll be taking my boards as well but the attendings help us. The attendings help us study and us residents are supposed to help the interns study for theirs but usually, the interns just get kicked in the ass because we're too busy studying our damn selves. I'll try to help you out though. I remember how stressful my intern exam was." She tilts her head so she can see how Harper is sleeping. "See, me and Jackson lucked out. Harper has two sets of grandparents that have no problem taking him when me and Jackson need a break. You and Alex… you guys don't have that."

"I know." I bite my lip. I think about that all the time, actually. I think about how Aubree just has me and Alex and nobody else. She doesn't have a grandma or a grandpa that'll dote on her. She has mommy and daddy and that's all. No aunts, no uncles. She has me, Alex and that's it. We're her only blood relatives…and she'll be my only blood relative. Alex has a brother and a sister but he never really talks about either one of them anyway. So basically, Aubree's it for the both of us. Steph's mom told me that she'd be free to take the baby off my hands anytime I need her to and Steph's family is the closest thing I've got to a family of my own, really. But still. "It's just kinda frustrating." I switch the topic back to the subject of work because I'm hormonal as hell right now and I might cry if I talk about family anymore. "Because of my low weight gain and my diabetes and all that. And now I'm on bed rest so I can only work seven hour shifts. I feel like I'm falling behind and I don't want that. I'm not…the person that falls behind, you know? I didn't graduate cum laude from Princeton and Harvard because I fell behind. This is new for me. I feel like I'm not up to par with everyone else and it's frustrating."

"You're not falling behind, Jo." The tone of her voice suggests that she thinks I'm being silly. "I'll tell you a secret…" She leans across the table. "…All these specialties? They're all bullshit until your second year." I raise my eyebrows. "Seriously. All of the questions they ask you on your intern exam are related to your General surgery rotation. They're not gonna ask you how to splint a broken tibia or how to deal with cardio myopathy or how to fix a cleft palate. They're not gonna ask you any of that crap. They just want to know if you can properly diagnose a hernia or priapism or appendicitis. The only way you'd be falling behind is if we kept you off General for nine months and that's not the case. Ever wonder why they stress that interns DON'T specialize? It's because the stuff that's on your intern exam is GENERAL."

"Seriously?" Oh god, she just made me feel a hell of a lot better. "I've been stressing out so bad over this, you have no idea. I just keep thinking about how stunted my education is and it's driving me crazy. You seriously just made me feel so much better." I take the moment to put my hand on Harper's butt again. Yeah, she made me feel so much better but she's still not getting her baby back. "I've been all discombobulated since the shooting." Just seeing how peacefully Harper's sleeping is making me sleepy myself. "Between dealing with the Alex and his ex and my pregnancy and everything that's going wrong with my pregnancy… I've been so out of sorts. But you just made me feel so much better. I'm gonna be figuring out how to be a good mom…I'm not gonna have time to play catch up."

"Seems like you're pretty good with the mom thing. You put my baby down with ease." She motions to the sleeping bundle of perfection on my chest.

"That doesn't mean anything though. That doesn't mean I'm gonna be any good at it." I bite my lip again and mumble my next sentence. "I had a kid once and I lost her already, doesn't mean that I'm gonna do any better with this one."

"You had a kid? Is that what you said?" Her eyes are very wide.

"Yeah." I shrug. "Not my real kid. I didn't give birth to her or anything but she still could've been my kid." She's still looking at me with a confused look on her face so I think maybe I should explain. "She used to live in the apartment across from my old one." I decide to make this story short. It's a long story but I don't feel like digging up the emotions that go with it because honestly, I just now got over it. "Her mom was mistreating her, so I called the people on her and got her taken away. But she ended up going to these shitty people and they let her get hit by a freaking car…so she ended up in here. And I was taking care of her while she was in here too. But she got adopted." I sigh. It does bother me how much I miss Brynn. With the shooting and everything, I just…got too busy and I forgot about her. I feel horrible because of it, and I know I failed her but…yeah. She got moved to another hospital—Seattle Children's Hospital after the shooting. April looks at me like she's really empathizing with me. I appreciate that. "But yeah…I still need to learn how to be a mom." I switch the mood of the topic but it still stings a little. And I'm still thinking about it.

They moved her to SCH and I had to pull her chart to know that. I actually pulled her chart the day I came back to work after the shooting. After me and Steph's stay in Olympia and when I came back to work for the first time, I remembered her. And I went to go visit her, but she was gone. So I pulled her chart to see where they moved her to and I found out that they moved her to SCH. So I called SCH to see if I could get ahold of her and maybe visit her. But they told me that she was discharged the week before. And I found out that she got adopted. I never even got to say bye to her. She taught me a lot, you know? I think she was teaching me everything I needed to know about how to be good to Aubree. And that's just it. I didn't say goodbye and I don't even know how she's doing.

Sick as it is to say it, I have to hope that she gets sick or hurt or something. Because that's the only way I'll ever see her again. I'm her doctor. Dr. Robbins put my name on her chart underneath "physician". Dr. Robbins is her primary care pediatrician, but I'm the one she'll see if Dr. Robbins is busy because I know her and I know her meds and stuff. So if she gets hurt, her new parents won't have a choice but to bring her here so I can release her records to another physician. I'm a sick person for wishing that, but I do. I hope that I have a reason to see her again. Because I really miss having someone that excited to see me. I really miss having someone that thought I was a good person. And actually…

Very briefly, for the moment…when I realized she wasn't up on the Peds floor anymore…I had a thought. That if she hadn't been adopted out by that point…I would apply. I'm already gonna be a mom, so why the hell not? I'm already gonna be a mom. And I know Alex would be all for it. We both know what it's like to be dealt a shitty hand when it comes to parents. We both know how sucky the foster system is. I know he wouldn't have had a problem with taking in a two year old baby girl. But there's no sense in me thinking that way anymore because she was one of the lucky ones. She was adopted and that's that.

"Well, all I'm saying is that you seem to have the right idea. You're good with Harper." She gives me a reassuring smile and I want to believe her when she says that. I really do. But I can't help but still be a little worried.

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><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

"These are actually cute…" I mumble, holding up a pair of yellow pants with a monkey's face on the ass. Kepner gave Jo a bunch of baby clothes that her little guy can't fit anymore and I'm sitting on the floor of her bedroom, going through them with her. I'm trying so hard not to be bitter, but I can't help but think that we wouldn't have to be sitting here in Jo's cramped up bedroom going through which clothes she's keeping and which clothes are going to my house if she would just freaking MOVE IN with me. Jo has something against moving in with me, so no…we're not sitting in AUBREE'S room putting things in AUBREE'S closet…instead, I'm sitting in JO'S room listening to music while Jo puts things in HER closet. This doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm not bitter. I swear I'm not bitter. "Your house or mine?" I ask her. On the other hand, it's not really her fault that we're at her house. She offered to come stay the night at my house tonight but it was raining really hard and I didn't want her to have to come out in the rain just to come to my house so I came to hers instead.

"Mine." She takes the pants off me. "You have enough pajama clothes for her. I have none. I have all her dress clothes. All the pajama looking things stay here. Dressy things that she could wear outside and stuff go to your house." She folds up the pair of pants and puts them in the growing pile. She's not singing, she's just humming which kind of disappoints me. She hasn't sung for me since I told her that I like her singing voice. She doesn't sing anymore after that and I don't know why. "…I have a few onesies that I want you to keep at your house though." She gets up from the cleared out spot she was sitting in on the floor and walks over to her closet. The room is covered in baby stuff. "I guess…Steph and Leah and Heather and Shane all went to the mall the other day and they came back with these. She's never wearing them so just keep them at your house. I don't wanna be rude and throw them away." She tosses the bag at me and sits back down.

"What's so wrong with them?" I reach inside the bag and pluck out the whole handful of onesies. I unfold them one by one to see what's so ugly about them. The first one is pink and it has white writing on it. And it says, "All Daddy Wanted Was A Blow Job, But He Got Me Instead." This is GREAT…What does she mean she's never wearing this?! "Oh come on! This is amazing!" I can't help but bust out in laughter. "Come on Jo…lighten up."

"You're not putting that on my baby!" She shakes her head. "My friends think they're so cute…."

"This is great…this is so good. She's definitely wearing this one at least." I put that one down in the pile. That's my favorite shirt of Aubree's so far. I unfold another one, and this one is black with pink writing on it. And it says, "No, Bitch. YOU need a nap." That one makes me bust out in laughter as well. "REALLY? This is hilarious! Your friends are geniuses!"

"I knew you'd appreciate them. I think they're just wrong. But I should've known." She's still folding clothes. I unfold the third one and read it. It's white with black writing and it says, "I'm with the MILF." I like this one as well because it's so true. Jo's definitely a MILF. "I told Steph I didn't want a baby shower and she told me that that was fine, but she and the rest of the gang were gonna go buy me gifts anyway. I should've known they'd come back with shit like this." I unfold the fourth and last one and read it. It's pink with a little bow on the front and it says, "Does this diaper make my ass look big?" Okay, that one's not so bad. "They did buy her some bottles though. Aside from the obscene onesies, they got her some bottles, a pack of pacifiers and a portable bottle warmer." She turns to look at me. "…I kinda like the 'No bitch YOU need a nap' one though…"

"These are amazing." I fold them all back up and put them in the bag. I'll take them all back to my house but please believe, Aubree will be wearing at least two of them to daycare. She'll wear the MILF one and the nap one. The blow job one is my personal favorite I think. That one and the MILF. "Why won't you let her wear the one about you being a MILF? It's totally true."

"Because that's inappropriate." She just shakes her head. "…But it is true, isn't it? I'm a total MILF." She winks at me. "I mean, not right now…because my stomach is huge and I'm kinda large right now but you know…once I drop this baby…"

"I think you're a MILF either way." I lean down and kiss her cheek. "…And your friends must've had a reason as to why they bought these, yes?"

"…Because I'd buy them the same thing, I'm not gonna lie." She cracks a smile. I gotta admit that the onesies are horrible but they're EXACTLY me and Jo. The sarcasm and the dry humor on them…that's the definition of the both of us. It's a shame when her friends know us that well. She lifts her head and kisses my lips. "Alright, come on…it's getting late and I wanna put all these clothes away soon. Help me fold." She lifts up a big pile and puts them on the bed with me. "Pajamas stay here, dress clothes go to your house." She orders me and I immediately start to fold things up. I fold a pair of pants up and stick them in the pile that's staying at Jo's house. And since it's quiet between us again, I can hear her humming.

"…You know you can actually sing, right?" I put a shirt in my pile and continue folding. "…I like it when you sing…you know that." I try to coax her into it but she doesn't budge. I like hearing Jo sing because it's just so mesmerizing. To have her be good at so many things, I mean. She's beautiful…she's smart…she's got the most amazing personality and she can sing. She's just so amazing to me. It's like everything she does is magical. Like she was made by the gods. I like her singing voice too. I swear I'm not just saying that because I'm in love with her either. She can actually sing pretty. I mean, maybe I am a little bit biased but is wear she's actually good. "…Sing for me, babe…please?" She still doesn't budge. I sigh and just keep folding. I think it's an embarrassment thing, honestly. She never meant for me to hear her sing in the first place and I think she's sheepish about it. She doesn't think she's a good singer but I'm telling you she is. I can't wait to hear her sing to Aubree. I'll be listening to her sing my damn self when she sings to Aubree.

"…I found a way to let you in…but I never really had a doubt. Standing in the light of your halo…I've got my angel now." She sings aloud for me. Not very loud but enough for me to hear it and enough for me to fall in love. She's literally such a good singer. She can hold notes and she's on key and everything. I'm so amazed by this woman, it's not funny. "It's like I've been awaken….every rule I had you breakin'. It's a risk that I'm takin'…I ain't never gonna shut you out…" She sings so pretty in tune with the music and she's flawlessly just folding the baby's clothes while she's singing, like folding is her form of dancing. "Everywhere I'm looking now…I'm surrounded by your embrace…baby I can see your haaaalo….you know you're my saving grace." She runs her hand through her hair. "You're everything I need and more…it's written all over your face…baby I can feel your haaalo…pray it won't fade away." She stands up to put things away and looks at me like she hates me for making her sing but I don't care. I could fall asleep to her singing. "I can feel your halo….halo…I can feel your halo…haaaaloooo…" She puts things away and finally stops singing.

"…Don't stop. Why'd you stop?" I didn't even realize that I stopped folding myself, just to listen to her.

"Because…" She covers her face with a onesie and I can see a little bit of her cheeks turning red. "I can't sing…and you insist on making me. I feel like an idiot…"

"I don't care…I like it." I start folding clothes again. "Continue….please? I'll rub your feet if you sing to me."

"…You'd rub my feet anyway." She rolls her eyes at me and puts a pile of onesies in her drawer. She bends down and picks up her iPod. I sit up real fast and nose around to see what she's doing. "Relax." She grumbles at me. "I'm finding a song." She turns on a new song and slams her iPod back down while she whips around her room to put the clothes all in their respective places. I lay back against her pillow and just decide to listen. Her pillow smells like her, by the way. Like her shampoo. I like it. I didn't realize how much I love Jo until I didn't have her for a while. It's weird how I like all the little things about her. Like the way she smells, the way she sings, the way her hair falls…I love everything about her. "…Closed off from love, I didn't need the pain. Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain…time starts to pass, before you know it, you're frozen…" I just close my eyes. "But something happened for the very first time with you…my heart melted to the ground, found something true…and everyone's lookin 'round thinkin' I'm goin' crazy…" I think I might fall asleep if she keeps singing. "But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you…they try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth…my heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing. You cut me open and I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love…I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love…keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love…" I feel her hand on my head. "Wake up…."

"Hmm? I'm up…" I open my eyeball and look at her. She looks so pretty. Her hair is so full, thick and long and her skin is just glowing. She's so pretty. You know how pregnancy can really do a number on some women? I think pregnancy's made Jo more beautiful, if that's even possible. She's still a tiny thing, I'll admit that. She didn't gain any weight in her legs, her face or her arms. She gained it all in her belly and she's ALL belly. She looks like she remained the same size throughout her body, just stuffed a basketball underneath her shirt. And her pregnant belly is flawless. Her bellybutton is still an "innie". It hasn't popped out or anything yet and I don't think it will. She's just…beautiful. "Keep singing…"

"No." She sits down on the bed next to me and keeps her hand on my cheek. "I have something to ask you. I thought about asking you earlier but I forgot about it until just now." She starts to play with my hair. "…You know how you have a brother and a sister, right?" I close my eyes and nod my head. She's gonna make me fall asleep by playing with my hair. I'm already tired as it is. "Do you ever talk to them?" I shake my head. "Why not?" I shrug. "…Well do you think you can?" I don't do anything. Why is she even asking me about Aaron and Amber? This didn't just come out of nowhere. This had to come from somewhere. "Alex…are you awake?" I nod my head. "Okay, then answer me." She clears her throat. "Do you think you can talk to your brother and your sister?"

"Why?" I mumble into the pillow.

"…Because." She sounds nervous to even be bringing up the topic and she should be. I don't want to talk about Aaron and Amber. If I did, I would've talked about them already. "I was just thinking today…" No she wasn't. She wouldn't just think about my brother and my sister randomly all of a sudden. She's lying and I'm annoyed. "Well… um…" She takes a minute to gather her thoughts. "So I was thinking….about how Aubree's just gonna have us. She's not gonna have any other blood relatives besides us. I mean, she'll have Meredith and Cristina and Stephanie and stuff…but she won't really have a real auntie or an uncle. Or she won't have a grandma or a grandpa. And I was just…wondering if your family is…completely out of the question…" She sounds like she's sorry for even mentioning it. "…I just wanted that for Aubree…"

"My mom's nuts, my dad's a bastard and my brother and sister are out of the question. Is that what you wanted to know?" I snap at her and she flinches at my words.

"…No, I was just wondering if…like…" She licks her lips. "Nevermind." She mumbles. "Forget I asked…." She stands up. "I'm ready for bed…are you?" She seems cheerful but I know it's faked and I don't care. I don't want to talk about my asshole of a dad, I don't want to talk about my schizo ass mother and I don't feel like bringing up my siblings. Yes, my family is out of the question and WE'RE the only family we need. We're enough for each other and we're DEFINITELY enough for our kid. I'm pissed that she even thought to ask.

I bury my face back into her pillow and just sigh.


	58. Ready or Not

**A/N: **So, this chapter is really long. Don't start reading unless you have time to read it. I think it's around 11k words, and honestly, that's because I have so many loose ends to tie up in this chapter. So I hope you guys are all pleased with the conclusions and the things I've added in this chapter. Things jump around a lot in this chapter, so just pay attention to things to make sure you understand. There are also some things I'd like to clear up in a note at the end.

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><p>"I gotta admit…seeing all these cute clothes and all these cute things is kinda making me wanna have a baby." She circles around Aubree's nursery, touching things like she can't believe they even exist. She runs her hand along the curtains hanging over the windows and looks over at the corner that I'll be spending the most time in while I nurse her. Alex isn't home yet. He got stuck in a surgery this afternoon for four hours so his shift now ends at 10:00 instead of 6:30 like it was supposed to. I got off work today at 3:00 and I came straight here afterwards so I could take a shower and go to sleep. He gave me a key. He got the house key back off Izzie and gave it to me instead. Again, that's his way of nudging me into moving in with him but I'm still against it, for various reasons. Anyway, I brought Steph over because I was lonely. I texted her and told her to come over Alex's because I was bored and I realized that she hadn't seen Aubree's nursery yet. "I want a baby…" She sits down in the rocking chair and mimics the gesture of holding a baby and rocking with it back and forth.<p>

"No you don't…don't say that." Even though the tone of her voice is clearly joking, I'm not joking in the least. Steph does not need a baby; at least not right now, she doesn't. People kill me with that. They see a cute baby and they just think "oh! I want one!" but it's really not that simple. It's not just rainbows and butterflies and cute baby-ness just staring at you. I never understood what people meant when they preached, "wait until you're stable enough to have a baby" until now. I'm not stable enough to have a child and I'm having one…and she's making a joke about it, saying she wants one. No she doesn't. "Wait. Don't be like me. Don't be stupid like me. Wait until you're at least…like a fourth year resident or something to have a kid. Don't get pregnant in the beginning of your career. Seriously, Steph. Don't be like me." I sit down on a box of diapers and put my hand on my belly. It's hard. It's really hard and firm and if I push on it, it hurts. But it feels lighter. It's not as heavy as it used to be. "Getting pregnant is the stupidest thing I've ever done."

"But just look…now you're having a little baby." She keeps on rocking in the rocking chair. "And you don't really think that. You don't really think getting pregnant was stupid. You love Aubree and all that stuff." She takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes while she yawns. "Besides…it's not like you got pregnant on purpose or whatever. You were on birth control when you did…it just failed."

"Yeah but he was still supposed to pull out just to be on the safe side." I circle my fingers around my bellybutton and just imagine what it would look like if it popped out. It's still like a regular belly button and it hasn't popped out like other pregnant bellies. I don't know if I'm happy that it didn't pop out or if I'm upset that I missed out on that. Or maybe I just don't give a shit. "And he did. He did really good, actually." I sigh, thinking about the night I got pregnant with her. Is it weird that I remember the exact time I got pregnant? Most women can't do that. But me? I remember it all. "It was my fault. I was riding him and he was groaning…you know that real sexy little grunt slash moan that guys do when you're doing good on top?" She nods her head. "He was doing that. And I had…like…" I close my eyes to envision it. "I had my hands on his chest. And he had his hands on my hips. And he told me. He told me he was gonna cum and I didn't listen to him, I just kept going because I was about cum too. But I didn't realize how close he actually was to busting…and I stayed on top but he came and I felt it and that's when I got off."

"You actually felt it?" She leans forward to look me in my eye. "Like…really? You felt it?"

"Yeah…" I nod. "Is that weird?" Her eyes widen and she just gives me a very menacing smile. "I swear you can feel it! I swear you can! That's not weird! All girls can feel it!" I put my hand underneath my belly for some support. Braxton Hicks contractions have been kicking my ass this week. I'm only 34 weeks so it's not time for her to come yet, so they're not actual contractions. And Alex looked at me last night and made sure they weren't real contractions. They're Braxton Hicks and they suck. It just feels like my belly tightens sometimes and I hate it. It doesn't hurt, it's just uncomfortable. "You can't tell me you've never felt it. Especially when the guy's on top. I feel it all the time. It gets all warm and stuff. It's already warm but I swear, when he busts it gets super-hot and it feels runny. I swear you can feel it. Don't look at me like that. I'm not weird."

"…I've had lots of sex and I never felt it when a guy busted inside of me." She just keeps shaking her head. "You're just a really big freak, Jo. Even when you're pregnant, you're still a freak."

"I'm really not, though." I scoot back on the box of diapers so my butt doesn't hurt so much and lean with my back against the wall. I need to take a bath. Soaking in bubbles and hot water usually help me when I'm having a bout of Braxton Hicks. "I don't really like having sex while I'm pregnant." I admit. I lift up my shirt just a little bit, enough to slide my hand up underneath of it. My belly is so soft. That oil that Steph bought for me at the drugstore really did prevent stretch marks. I still don't have any. "I'm always horny, but I hate having sex. I feel so fat and unattractive. And it's weird…" I rest my head against the wall and sigh. "I told Alex that it's weird for me and he's been nice about it. He doesn't try anymore. Because the last time we did…I was just as huge as I am now and he couldn't lie on top of me, so we had to do it…doggystyle. And…usually when we do it like that, he puts his hands on my hips, like right around my stomach. And he couldn't do that because I'm too fat. And it was just the worst experience. So then I got on top but I felt so fat, Steph. I had my shirt on because I don't want him to look at me and think I'm huge, but he kept trying to take the shirt off. So then we just gave up….and he ate me out." I shrug my shoulders. "So right now, our sex life consists of oral and oral only. He goes down on me, I go down on him."

"What would you do if Aubree started kicking while you guys were doing it? Like…say you found a comfortable way to get it in and you were doing it but Aubree started kicking. Would you be mad?"

"That happened." I bite my lip to choke back a smile because despite how funny it sounds, it really wasn't. It wasn't funny. I was so annoyed when it happened but Alex thought it was so great. "He was behind me…not doggystyle, but just laying down behind me while I was lying on my side. And we were doing it like that but he had to put his hand on my stomach to brace himself and it was good. It was good for like…twenty minutes and she kicked his hand, which made him freak out. He just stopped and started giggling. He stopped thrusting and he was just laughing. I was so mad, Steph. Because you Aubree. You know she doesn't kick. She doesn't kick even a little bit…she's always so calm and quiet in there. But the ONE time I'm getting my rocks off, she starts kicking. I was so pissy and Alex was just laughing and smiling. The shit wasn't even close to being funny. My kid's already a cock-block and she's not even here yet."

"Don't call her a cock-block! She didn't even know what she was doing!"

"No, she's a cock-block." Again, I sigh and grab a chunk of my hair to pick at my split ends.

"…So are you excited yet? You have what…six more weeks? Are you getting excited to meet her?"

"Not really." I shrug. "I'm more excited to not be pregnant anymore. I'm so over being pregnant. I'm so sick of it. I'm sick of waddling around, I'm sick of having to put my hand on my stomach to sit, I'm sick of having to piss all the time, I'm sick of being so tired all the time, I'm tired of not being able to see my feet. I want to shave my vagina but I can't without squatting over a mirror. I want to eat a fucking cookie without worrying if it's gonna set my blood sugar off or not. I want to fit my cute clothes again, I want to have sex again, I wanna go back to working full time." I just look at her because I'm about to be brutally honest. "…I'm too scared to be excited."

"Scared about what? The pain?" She asks. I put my head back against the wall again and nod it. "You can always get the epidural. I heard that once you get that thing, you don't feel anything. Just get that pain stuff. I mean, getting that needle shoved into your back will probably hurt but wouldn't you rather your back hurt for a couple minutes than your vagina hurt for hours?" I nod. "You'll be okay. I'll be there and I'll make sure you're okay." She leans over to touch my shoulder. _Shit. I didn't tell her yet. I didn't tell her that Alex doesn't want her there yet. Oh fuck. It completely slipped my mind. Dammit. _

"Yeah, but you'll be there afterwards…not during." I try to let her down as easily as I possibly can without upsetting her. I feel bad. I feel horrible that I waited this long to tell her. She spent this entire time thinking she was gonna be there in the delivery room while I pushed but I have to tell her NOW…six weeks before I give birth, that she can't be there. And like I knew she would, she caught on to what I just said. And her eyebrows wrinkle and her eyes squint. "Me and Alex were talking…" I can't even look at her. I feel like shit for doing this to her. "And we just thought…" I swallow a lump in my throat. "Well, we thought…that maybe…" I bite my lip. "…We just thought that it would be more intimate and personal if it were only the two of us in the room. Just me and him…"

"…Oh, you guys thought that?" She sounds mad. I think she's mad. Damn, she's mad. I just slowly nod my head. "You and Alex came up with that?" I nod again. "…Which is just your way of saying that Alex doesn't want me there." She rolls her eyes and looks away from me. She poises herself to get out of the chair but she doesn't…not yet. "Whatever, I don't care." She stands up. "I'm going home."

"Wait…Steph…" I put my hand on my stomach and stand up myself. "You can still come in afterwards. Like…right after I have her. Right after I pop her out and she's all cleaned up…you can be there right after. Okay?" I'm having another Braxton Hicks contraction. My belly is tightening. "…It's not like I don't want you there at all because I do. You can just be there right after….and you can be there before. But you just can't be there while I'm pushing…"

"Sure, whatever." She picks up her purse off the floor and heads for the door.

"Wait…are you mad?"

"Me? No…I'm not mad." She lays the sarcasm on thick. I tilt my head and squint my eyes at her to let her know that she needs to speak up. I don't appreciate the sarcasm. If she has an issue, I'd rather her just say it so we can sit here and address it and hash it out before she leaves angry. "…I just know that nobody but Alex put you up to it. Because you were all for it. You were all for me being there and now you're not?" She looks really pissed. "It's just that…" She rolls her eyes at me. "You're my best friend, Jo. You're literally like my sister. And I know I don't come first when it comes to Alex because he's the baby daddy and I get that much. I get that. But I really wish you wouldn't push me out of the picture based on the things he wants. He told you he didn't want me in the room and you just bowed down and listened to him. You didn't make the decision for yourself, he made it for you. I get that I don't come first but seriously, Jo. You keep pushing your friend out of the picture and you're not gonna have anyone when he kicks you to the curb again."

"…Alright, I'll talk to him. I'll tell him that I want you there…" I already know Alex is gonna have a problem with that. I already know. But at this point, I can't win in this predicament. Either Steph's gonna be mad at me or Alex is gonna be mad at me. And I'm trying to make this decision based on what I want, but I really don't know what I want. I don't know if I want it to just be me and Alex or if I want it to be me, Alex and Steph. I just don't know. I do know that I don't want either one of them to be mad at me. I just don't want the two of them to be in the room fighting over whatever happens here. I just want the two of them to get along. "I'll talk to him about it tonight. Sorry…"

"See!?" She yells at me and now I'm just really confused. I told her that I'd talk to him, damn. What more does she want from me? "You're a mindless freaking robot when it comes to something that deals with me vs. him! You don't ever make the decisions yourself! You let other people make them for you and it's SO annoying, Jo!" I don't get why she's yelling. I said I'd talk to him… "Just when I thought me and you were making a breakthrough…"

"What do you mean by that?" Here's another thing about me. I'm not a punk. I'm not a punk and I don't mind defending myself to ANYONE that warrants it. But I can't take being yelled at by someone I love. I don't like feeling like I've disappointed anyone and I don't like being yelled at by people I think highly of. Steph's no exception to that. I feel myself shutting completely down at her yelling at me. "Don't be mad at me, Steph. I said I'd talk to him and I will. Just forget I even brought this up. Okay? Forget I brought this up. I'm sorry. I'll talk to Alex later on tonight when he gets home and I'll fix this." I nervously run my fingers through my ponytail that's resting down my left shoulder. "I'll fix this…" I whisper to myself.

"I'm not mad at you…I'm just annoyed with you." Her words are sharp though, cutting deep. "It's annoying how you never want to be in the middle when it comes to me and Alex. It's so fucking annoying. I don't like him and he doesn't like me and that's the way it is. You need to make all the decisions, because of course, if you let us make them for you, they're gonna be shitty. How could you not see that Alex told you not to let me in the room, JUST BECAUSE he doesn't like me? He doesn't like me, Jo. Of course he'll tell you he doesn't want me there. But it shouldn't be about him. It should be about what you want. And I'm pissed that you would even think to mention this shit to me after everything we've been through…with the shooting and stuff. I'm pissed that even after all of that, you'd STILL listen to him when he says he doesn't want me there. Like didn't that entire three weeks after the shooting mean anything to you?"

"No…it did." I really do hate being put in the middle of her and Alex's shit though. I hate it. "I just don't want either one of you to be mad at me. You don't understand how frustrating it is to have a best friend and a boyfriend that don't like one another. It's annoying to me too, when you guys argue and fight and do shit in spite of each other all the time. You guys annoy the hell out of me…both of you do. I don't get why you two just can't get along." I shrug. "And I really don't think him not liking you has anything to do with why he doesn't want you there. He just…" I tilt my head and swallow my pride. "He's like me, Steph. He didn't have good parents, he doesn't have a family either. And I think he just wants it to be super personal and intimate when he gets a family. You know?"

"…No, I don't know." She shakes her head, completely and utterly just pissed off by me. "I think he needs to stop being such a fucking crybaby about this. What would he do if I was your blood sister? What if me and you really were sisters? He'd have no choice but to suck it the fuck up. You just need to make decisions for yourself, Jo. That's all I want you to start doing. Make decisions by yourself."

"Well it wouldn't be so hard if you two would just stop doing this to me." I put my head down and try so hard not to cry. I don't want either one of them to be mad at me. If I tell Steph she can't be there, I don't want her to hold it over me for the rest of our friendship that I wouldn't allow her to be there for the birth of her godchild. And if I tell Alex that Steph's gonna be in the room while I have her, he's gonna have an attitude and I don't want him to be angry and irritated the whole time I'm giving birth to his daughter. I don't know what I want. "I just don't want you guys to be mad…" I have half a mind to tell them both that I don't want either one of them there. I can have Aubree by my damn self. Both of them can just come in afterwards. "I don't want him to have an attitude about it and you're clearly pissy with me…"

"Oh no…we wouldn't want king Alex to be mad, now would we?" She says, dryly and with severe sarcasm in her tone. She must really be pissed. I've never heard Steph talk to anyone like this, much less me. "Whatever, Jo. I'll take one for the team. I'll sit in the waiting room, I don't care." I'm gonna cry. I really don't want Steph of all people to be angry with me. "Better yet?! Why don't you just hit me with a text message when you give birth. Yeah, that's it! Just text me and have someone send me a picture after she's born. I'll get to the hospital as soon as I can." She slings her purse on her shoulder and leaves the room.

"Steph!" I walk after her. She walks quickly down the steps though. "Wait, Steph! That's not what I wanted! I said I'd talk to him! I WANT YOU THERE!" I scream after her but she just keeps going. She opens up the front door. "STEPH, PLEASE WAIT!" I holler at her from the top of the steps. I'm too upset to walk down the steps right now. If I walk down the steps while I'm crying, I'll fall. "STEPH!" I scream again but the only thing I get out of her is the slamming of the front door.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"I finished your post-op notes….all your surgeries are scheduled for the next week and tomorrow, I'll finish up the lab screenings for the NICU." I click the top of the pen so it retracts in and stick it in the breast pocket of my scrubs. It's 9:45 and I'm ready to head home to Jo. I'm exhausted, as I have been for the last few weeks. With Jo being off work full time lately, I picked up a bunch of extra shifts. I'm not really worried about the money aspect, honestly. I know me and Jo and Aubree are set. Even with Jo not working as much as she used to, I'm still making enough to cover everything. Aubree doesn't need much of anything else anyway. I mean if I go out to the store and I see something I think is cute, I'll buy it for her anyway but she doesn't need anything. She's all set with everything. Clothes, cribs, bottles, binkies, car seats…she has it all. Money's not really an issue but I want to make sure that we're financially comfortable enough so that Jo can take as long a maternity leave as she wants without worrying. "I'm going home." I close the big binder full of Arizona's notes and slide them across the counter to her.

"Thank you, Alex." She shoves the binder under her armpit and takes a deep breath, like she's the one that's been working her ass off lately. "I don't know what I'd be doing without you lately….things have just been so crazy." She drums her fingers along the counter. "And I know how busy you must be with getting ready for your little girl and stuff. I really appreciate you stepping up." I just nod my head, listening to her and trying not to doze off. I'm so tired. "You should be studying for your boards, though. Instead of investing all your time in this hospital, you need to go study for your boards." I nod, agreeing with her for the sake of her shutting up. "You work tomorrow?" I nod again. "Me and you are gonna spend the day studying. Between cases…okay?" Nod again. "Okay…get your butt home and go to sleep now." She pats me on my shoulder and walks away. I put my hands in my pockets and turn to head off in the direction of the residents' lounge so I can grab my stuff to go home for the night. "Oh, wait…Alex." Robbins calls me again and I turn around. I can't do anything else tonight. I'm too tired. "Before I forget, I got you something… just to show you that I appreciate all your help." She opens up the gate to the nurses' station and goes behind the counter.

"I don't need anything…" I mutter. "I need to sleep. Keep it…whatever it is." I wave my hand at it to let her know I don't want it and try to walk away again.

"Oh would you just shut up and take it?" She produces a gift bag from behind the counter and hands it over to me. The bag is light pink with dark pink stripes and frilly white ribbon around the top. The handles are white lace bows and it has pink tissue paper coming out of it. It looks like it'd be for either Aubree or Jo, so for that reason, I'll take it. I grab the bag out of her hand and put it on the counter so I can open it up. "Me and Callie picked it up the other day…we couldn't help ourselves." The smile on her face says it all…she's excited to see me open it. I hope it's not clothes. Aubree has way too many clothes. I reach into the bag and take out the hard thing I find first.

I pull the hard thing out of the bag and find that it's baby body wash and shampoo. Both the body wash and the shampoo are packaged together, but it's the purple kind. I read the label to make sure it's the same brand as the one we have at home. _Johnson's Baby Bedtime Bath. _It's purple and it looks like it probably smells really good. _Johnson's Calming Lavender Shampoo. _This is good, because of all the scents we bought, I don't think me or Jo bought lavender scented. We have the vanilla oatmeal scented one and the honey apple scented one and the pink one and the yellow one and all that. We have a bunch of these…but I don't recall getting her the purple ones. "Thanks…" I put them back inside the bag. "…Jo has a thing about smelly babies." I chuckle because it's the truth. "She spent a day in the daycare a while back when she first started here, and she said she encountered a stinky baby and it traumatized her. She doesn't want our baby to be stinky."

Arizona laughs at that. "That stuff smells heavenly. That's all me and Callie used on Sofia." She nudges the bag closer to me with her knuckles. "There's more." She urges.

I reach inside the bag again and touch what feels like a hanger. I wrap my hand around it and pull it out of the bag. And I crack the biggest, dumbest smile at what I pull out. They're scrubs. Little teeny, tiny, light blue scrubs. Complete with the pocket on the left breast and everything. And wrapped around the top hanger is a pacifier that's shaped like a stethoscope. "…Where'd you guys find these?" I hold them up and turn them around. They look just like the scrubs that me and Jo wear to work every day, just 10xs smaller. And the pacifier is pretty great too. The part that goes into her mouth is the circle part of the stethoscope and the earphones of the stethoscope are shaped like earphones but they're clips to clip the pacifier to her shirt. "Thanks, Robbins…"

"Aren't they adorable?" She claps her hands, clearly proud of herself. "I saw them in the Baby Depot. at the mall and I grabbed them right up. They had pink ones that Callie wanted to get, but I thought the blue ones are more fitting…since you and Wilson both wear the light blue ones."

"I love 'em." I fold them up neatly along with the pacifier and put them back into the bag. "Jo's gonna love 'em too."

"I just felt a little bad not getting you anything… even though you didn't have a shower for her, I felt like I should buy something for your little one."

"Yeah…Jo's not really into baby showers. She's not the baby shower type." I put the bag on my wrist so I don't lose it and give Robbins an awkward, side hug. "Thanks again…"

"No problem, Alex."

**X X X**

I reach into the pocket of the pair of jeans I changed into and grab my car keys. I secure the pink bag of Aubree's things that Arizona gave to me in my hand and push the main doors to the hospital open. Jo's at my house tonight and she's probably wondering where the hell I am. I was supposed to be home a while ago, but I got caught up talking to Robbins, which delayed my clock out time. And then when I went to go change into my street clothes to go home for the night, I got busy with showing Mere and Cristina Aubree's little scrubs. They loved them, by the way. But yeah. I ran into some obstacles, but I'm on my way home now. I push the button on my key chain to unlock my car doors and grab my phone from my pocket too. I'm gonna call Jo and let her know that I'm on my way. I keep my phone and my keys in my hand and walk to my car. I open up the door and climb inside, tossing Aubree's bag into the passenger's seat. I shut the door and start my car up. I took it to the car wash today on my lunch break because I'm giving it to Jo tonight. Well, I'm not really GIVING it to her tonight, but I'm gonna tell her that it's hers tonight. She asked me why I put the car seat that SHE picked out for Aubree into this car instead of the one I bought for her myself and I told her it was because I liked hers better. Wasn't true, but I didn't want to ruin the surprise of giving her the car yet.

It is hers after tonight, though. I'm gonna hand her the keys and that's it. Tomorrow on my lunch break, me and Jackson are running to the car dealership down the street to pick up my new one. I was off two days ago and while Jo was at work, I went and filled out all the paperwork and stuff to get my new car. My new car is a black jaguar and I love it. I didn't bring it home the day I paid for it because I wanted to get it rust proofed and the tires chained up. It's the kind of thing I can see myself driving…not this car. Not that this car is bad, because it's not. It's actually really nice and it's relatively new. It's a red 2013 Buick Verano and it's still in really good condition. I took it to get it serviced and new tires put on it on my off day to make sure it was in good enough condition to give it to Jo. Anyway, I go to pick up my new car tomorrow and Jackson's taking me to do it. So the Buick is Jo's after tonight and I feel better knowing that my girl and my daughter are getting into this car, instead of Jo's deathtrap. I'm gonna take that piece of shit to a junkyard or something.

I decide not to call Jo…just in case she's sleeping already. She tires out quickly these days and I don't want to disturb her. So I just lean back to make sure I'm not gonna hit anything or anyone and I back out of the parking space I'm in. I turn my wheel and make sure the car is straight. I put it in drive and start to leave when I notice someone struggling underneath the hood of her car. _Of course. Of course…of course, of course, of course. Of course. _And I'm way too nice of a person and way too good of a gentleman to let a girl struggle to fix a problem she has no idea how to fix. But of course, you know? Of course SHE has to be the one having car problems. How typical, right? What is it with me and girls that have shitty cars? I sigh and throw the gear in park while I roll down my window. "…Do you need a ride home, Iz?" I ask her. I'm not gonna just let her sit out in the rain trying to fix her car. I wouldn't like myself very much if I just rode right past her.

"No, I can do it." She yells out to me through the rain. I know she can't do it. Iz doesn't know the first thing about fixing a car and she doesn't even have a flashlight to guide herself. It's raining and I'm not about to just let her sit out here. She hasn't spoken a word to me since I told her off while I was in the hospital after getting shot, months ago. I was really mean to her but it worked. It got her to stop messing with me and Jo's relationship. It didn't work on getting her to leave Seattle though.

"Get in the car, Iz… now." I yell back out to her. I'm not in the mood to argue with her, but more importantly, I'm not in the mood to be mad at myself for leaving her out in the rain. "NOW!" I scream. She takes down the kickstand under her hood and slams it down before she starts walking over to me. I unlock the door and let her inside. Soaking wet, she sits down in the passenger's seat and I start to drive. "…What's wrong with your car?" I ask. I don't really care what's wrong with her car, I just don't want to ride her home in awkward silence. She's staying at a hotel in downtown Seattle and that's a little more than ten minutes away…which means I'd be silent for ten minutes and that's awkward.

"It just needs a jump. I left my lights on all day and nobody thought to tell me." While I start driving, she buckles her seatbelt. "…This mean you're not mad at me anymore?" She asks, bluntly.

"That's not at all what this means." I put on my turn signal. "This means I'm too nice to let you sit out in the freezing rain in the middle of March."

"Come on, Alex…you have to talk to me."

"No, actually…I don't." I speed up the road. I'm really starting to wish I had left her out there.

"You don't just push me out of the way of a bullet and then crap all over me…"

"I'm a nice guy." I turn another corner. "I don't like you…doesn't mean I wanted you to get shot though."

"What happened to how much you wanted me, though?"

"I was delusional….hallucinating…not lucid." I keep my tone harsh and monotonous.

"So this is how we're gonna play this?"

"Yep."

"So you really hate me?"

"Really, really." I nod my head and keep driving straight to get to downtown Seattle. I really, really wish I had left her now. Matter of fact, I'd take the awkward silence over this. You do something nice for someone and they automatically think this means you love them. You push a girl out of the way of a bullet just to be nice and she thinks it means you love her. You pick her up out of the rain and she thinks she's entitled to talk to you, after ruining your relationship. "Just because I hate you doesn't mean I'm gonna let you sit out in the rain though…or get shot." I put on my turn signal. "I did love you at one point in time."

"And you can love me again." She mumbles.

"No, Iz. No I can't." I glance over at her for a moment. "…What are you still doing here? Seriously, Izzie. What are you doing here? Are you still hoping that I want you? Why are you here?"

"…You really want me to give up, don't you?" She sighs. "…I'm really wasting my time, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you are." I turn onto the road that her hotel is on but I hit a stop light. "You wrecked my relationship with Jo and I still don't want you. And me and Jo are back together now, so what are you still here for? What are you still sitting around hoping for?" I turn and look at her since I'm at a stop light. "…And I know you're still thinking about what happened in the on-call room, when me and Jo were broken up." She nods, admittedly so. "And I guess I owe you an apology for that." I admit as well. "I'm sorry that that even happened. But Iz…" I sigh. Despite how asshole-ish I seem sometimes, I really don't like hurting feelings. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not that big of an asshole. "I loved you. I loved you so much…. I loved you more than I loved myself. I wanted to marry you…I was gonna kill myself if something happened to you. When you left me…I thought that that was the end for me…I really did. But that's just it. YOU left me. You left and I moved on…and I'm sorry that you haven't been able to do the same. But yeah…you're wasting your time here."

"…I just can't believe I lost you." She sounds like she's gonna cry, but she does a good job at holding it back. The light turns green so I start to drive again. "…Just say it, Alex. Just say it…and I swear I'm gone." Her voice is cracky but she sounds like she's pushing through. "Just say it…do you really want me to leave? Because I will… if that's really what you want. Deep down inside, if that's what you want…"

"It's what I want." And I've never been more sure of something in my life. That month I spent without Jo really put things in perspective for me. And I'm sure that I don't want Iz. I'm sure. "I don't want you here, Iz. I don't want you pining after me, I don't want you sitting here waiting for something that's not gonna happen." I park my car outside of her hotel. "…I love you, Iz. I'll always have some degree of love for you…and I won't deny that. I'll never deny that." I reach over and hold her hand. "And I want you to move on. I really want you to go and I want you to live your life. I want you to find somebody…because you don't need me. You're wasting this time here and you could be somewhere else. Go back to Chehalis and find somebody….I need you to be okay without me. I love you in that sense. I want you to go be happy…because I'm happy."

"She makes you happy?" She looks at me, dead in my eyes with her hand on the door handle.

"Very happy."

"Something I couldn't do…" She mutters and plasters a very fake, very forced smile across her lips. "…Good luck with your baby, okay? And make sure…" She swallows. "Make sure you treat Jo well. She's…she's nice. And she's good, Alex. She's not…me. She loves you…a lot. And she's so sweet…she's good." A tear slips out of her eye. "That's why I helped her that day at Seattle Pres….because she doesn't deserve this. She's a sweet girl." I nod my head. She's speaking the truth. "And I need you to keep being happy. Can you do that for me?" I nod. She leans across the seat and gives me a kiss, right on my lips. But I don't refuse it. I don't open my mouth to deepen the kiss at all and I don't kiss her back but I also don't pull away. I know she needs this kiss. And if she's kissing me for the reason I think she's kissing me, I'll just bear with it because it's worth it. "Bye, Alex…" She smiles at me after she pulls away from the kiss. "…I love you."

I nod my head. "…Love you too, Iz." I grab her hand and squeeze it. "Take care of yourself." She nods her head at me and opens up the car door. She shuts it behind herself and you know what?

I'm pretty sure that's the last I'll ever hear from her…

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

I pile a bunch of linguini noodles on his plate and take it over to the stove so I can put alfredo sauce over them. "…Okay, so if it's disgusting, you don't have to eat it." I pick up the spoon and evenly put the white sauce over the noodles. "I…got the recipe off the internet and it looked…good. I think I might've burned the sauce…and I didn't have non-stick cooking spray so I substituted it with butter…" I tried so hard to cook for him. He's always so hungry when he gets home from work and he eats things like dry cereal and waffles. He's a man…he should have a real dinner to come home to. And I've been so bored just sitting at home after I get done working. "I tried, okay? I can't cook…but I really tried." I put the plate down on the kitchen table in front of him and hand him a fork. "And you don't have to be nice. If it's nasty just say so."

He just smirks at me and picks up his fork. "We could just order out, you know…." He stabs his fork into the pile of noodles and twirls it around. "But thanks for even thinking about it."

"You shouldn't have to eat takeout all the time. That isn't right. I'm your…woman. I should cook for you." I put my hands on his shoulders and rub them for him. He smells really good. He just got out of the shower and he used the aftershave that I really like. "And I'm gonna have to learn…" I made me and Steph pot roast yesterday and she told me it was good. I think she lied. She did eat two helpings so maybe it wasn't horrible but I don't think it was as good as she said it was. I've been really trying, okay? When Aubree gets old enough, I don't want her to have to eat takeout. I want her to be able to eat something that mommy made her to eat. "Just keep in mind that I'm not Betty Crocker." He lifts his fork to his mouth and takes a bite. I watch him chew.

"….Not bad, babe." He swallows it and goes for another bite. "…Are you Italian? 'Cause this is really good… I mean it." He takes another bite. "I don't know if I was really hungry or if this is really that good. Babe, it's delicious."

"You don't have to lie to me… my feelings won't be hurt."

"Jo, I'm serious." He licks some sauce off his thumb. "I want more already." He smacks his lips. "Gimme more…I want more." His plate isn't even empty yet.

"…Is actually edible?"

"It's actually edible." He takes the last forkful and empties his plate. "Oh…" He talks with his mouth full. "I have something to give you…before I forget." He pushes his chair out and stands up. While he goes and gets what he needs to get me, I take his plate over to give him seconds. I'm so proud of myself. I fucked up a lot of things today, like me and Steph's friendship. But at least I didn't fuck up dinner. I put more noodles on his plate and go back over to the sauce. I wonder what he has to give me. He already showed me what Callie and Arizona got for Aubree and I must say, the scrubs are ADORABLE. I love them so much. And he told me that he thinks he got rid of Izzie for good…what else can he give to me?

"…Alex, I want to talk to you about something." I put his plate back in the spot where he was sitting and sit down in the seat across from his. I don't know how to approach the whole Steph-in-the-delivery-room situation, but I'm gonna try my best to do it civilly. After Steph left, I took some time and thought about what she said. And after crying about it, I realized that she's just a little bit right. When it comes to her vs. Alex, I do tend to take the backseat but that's only because they're two of the most important people in my life, and I can't deal whenever one of them is mad at me. I'm all out of sorts since Steph is mad. "And you're not allowed to get mad…" I say and wait for him to come back.

He comes back into the kitchen with nothing in his hands. "What is it, babe?" He sits down at his plate and picks up his fork again. "What do you need?"

"…I want Stephanie in the delivery room." I pick up a piece of my hair to deal with my nervousness. I really don't want him to have an attitude. "Before you flip out on me, just hear me out." I put my hands up but he doesn't even try to talk. "She's my best friend…practically my sister, really. And after the shooting, she was my rock. And Aubree's her godbaby. And I finally told her tonight that you don't want her there and she was really upset and I kind of understand her frustration. And I think I want her there. She won't try to intrude or anything and she gets that it's gonna be special for you and me…"

"Is it something that you want?" He asks me with a mouthful of alfredo.

"Yeah." I nod. "If she were my blood sister, I'd want her there. And she's just as good as a blood sister. She's my best friend…and she'll keep me grounded in there. Like if I'm freaking out, Steph's the only person that can talk me down." I explain. "She won't like…try to steal the moment. She understands. She won't try to be the first person to hold her and she won't try to like…butt you out. She'll be there for me first, Aubree second. I want her there…"

"If it's something that you really want, Jo…that's fine." He shrugs his shoulders. "I think it'd be more special if it was just me and you, but if it's something that you want and if it would make you feel comfortable to have her there for you, I don't care. It's gonna be all about you in there. Whatever you want. If you want drugs…whatever. Whatever you want, you get. You're the one having the baby."

"…Really? You don't mind?"

"No." He shakes his head.

"…Baby." I stand up and wrap my arms around him. "I was so scared to ask you…I thought you'd be mad…" I kiss his cheek. "Thank you…"

"Of course I'm not mad, babe." He laughs at me and puts his hand on my lower back. "..My turn? To tell you my news?" I keep my arms wrapped around him and nod. "Okay, I have something to give you." He says. I don't say anything, I just wait for him. "Here." He reaches into the pocket of the pair of basketball shorts he's wearing and pulls out his car keys. What the hell is he giving me car keys for? What's the catch? "…Here. Babe, take them." He tries to force them into my hands. Those are HIS keys though, that's what I'm not getting. "The Buick's yours. Your car's a piece of shit and there's no way I was letting you ride around in that anymore…especially with the baby. So here. The Buick's all yours now."

"What do you mean?" I still don't take the keys. I just stare at him.

"I mean that the Buick is YOUR CAR now. I took it to the wash, I got new tires put on it, the oil changed…got it inspected and all that. And it's paid off so you don't gotta worry about the car payments." He forces the keys into my hands. "I went down to the dealership and got a new one. Got myself a jaguar now. So the Buick's yours. You need a new car, babe."

"…Alex, no." I hand him the keys back. "I can't…no. Take it back…" My jaw starts to tremble and my eyes well up with tears. "No…."

"Yes." He pushes my hand away. "Jo, you need a new car babe. What kind of boyfriend and what kind of dad would I be if I let my girl and my baby ride around in a car that's due to explode at any moment? That's why I put your car seat in the Buick…because I knew the whole time I was giving it you." Is he serious? "…Take the keys." He pushes my hand again. "I paid it off so you don't have to. There aren't any car payments you have to make. The oil's changed, there are brand new tires on it, it's inspected, the brakes were tested, I put a new battery up in it. And now it's yours…okay?"

"…You got me a car…" My voice is all scratchy. My knees go a little bit weak so I hold my belly and sit down. I wipe some tears away but they won't stop coming out. "I hate you so much…" I sniff. "…I was just freaking out about…putting Aubree in my car because it's all fucked up…" I fan myself while tears just run out of my eyes. "…Thank you…" I sniff again. "I can't believe you…" I put my hands over my eyes and just let myself cry. Happy tears though, happy tears. He stands up from his seat and walks over to me. He wraps his arms around my body and squeezes. I bury my face in his stomach and just cry. "…I'll pay you back… I swear I will. I swear to GOD I'll pay you back…"

"Why?" He rubs my back. "Don't pay me back..." He kisses the top of my head. "You don't have to pay me back, Jo. I love you…I told you I'd do anything for you. And I told you that I'm gonna take care of you. No matter what, I'm gonna take care of you." He keeps on rubbing my back. "You know I'm not gonna let my girl and my baby ride around in a shithole like that while I'm riding around in a 2013 Buick. You know I wasn't gonna let that fly…" He picks my head up but I really don't wanna look at him. I'm crying so hard right now and I probably look ugly. "Look at me…Jo, look at me." I just take my eyes up to his. "…As long as you got me in your life, you don't gotta worry about anything. Okay? I got you…let me take care of you." He strokes my cheek. "Let me take care of you…I told you that I got you and I meant that. You won't need anything as long as you got me. You gonna let me take care of you?" I shrug my shoulders. "I know you're independent. I know you're used to doing it on your own, but I'm not gonna let you struggle. If I got it, you got it. If you need money for something and I got it, believe that you have it. Okay?"

I put my arms back around his waist and hug him. I'm not used to having a man take care of me. It's a weird feeling. Come to think of it, I'm not used to having ANYONE take care of me. I don't know how to feel about this. I just don't know. "I love you…" I don't feel like I tell him that enough. He always tells me that but I never tell him. I feel like he should know that I love him, but I guess it wouldn't hurt for me to say it every once in a blue moon. "I love you…"

**X X X **

"How has your blood sugar been?" Ironically enough, she's asking me this just as she's cleaning my finger off to prick it to test it. This is a rather normal occurrence to me anymore, so I don't mind having her clean my finger off to prick it. I'm pretty accustomed to these visits anymore. She checks my blood sugar, checks my weight, checks my blood pressure, checks on Aubree then lets me go. "You've been sticking to the diet, right?" She puts the meter to my finger and pushes the button to prick it. She feeds the droplet of blood into the strip and waits to get a reading on it. "Your weight is up two pounds…which brings your total up to nine pounds. That's good." She scribbles that down on my chart. She picks up the meter as well. "And your sugar's good too…this is all good." She puts that in my chart as well. "And your stress level has been the same since the last visit?" She side-eyes Alex because she knows he's my primary source of stress sometimes.

"Yeah…everything's been good." Since I'm such a pro at these appointments, I know she's gonna ask me to lie down next. So I scoot back on the table and lie down flat. I don't like lying on my back anymore. My big belly makes it extremely hard to breathe when I lie flat on my back. "I've been having those…Braxton Hicks a lot. Every day…" I look over at Alex. He's scrolling through something on his phone and I'm not sure what. I just put my attention back on Dr. Maxwell. I'm 36 weeks pregnant today and I swear I've never felt so tired and huge in my life. I'm so over being pregnant. SO over it. "And she doesn't move at all anymore. Is that okay? I mean…I remember just two weeks ago at 34 weeks, she would move around. But she doesn't move at all anymore. Not even when I poke her…"

"That's normal." She lifts up my shirt and pushes on my belly. "She's getting bigger and you're small…so she's getting cramped. All babies do. The closer to your due date, the more cramped up they get and when they're cramped up, they can't move much anymore. That's normal for her to not move…and she was very mellow anyway." She pushes down, right above my vagina. I grit my teeth because fuck uncomfortable, that HURTS. "…She dropped." That little phrase makes Alex look up from his phone. "Her head's down, which is good…means she's getting ready to come out." She pushes on my stomach and again, I grit my teeth. That hurts… "...I'm gonna go ahead and give you an ultrasound…make sure she's doing well in there, okay?" I nod my head. Whatever, I don't care. Just STOP pushing on my stomach…fucking hurts. "That hurt when I push on your stomach there, Jo?" She pushes on it again.

"Ow! Mhm….Mhm…." I nod my head frantically. "Why does that hurt so bad? Is that supposed to hurt?"

"Some pain is normal…but it shouldn't be excruciating." She grabs the ultrasound monitor and the gel to put on my belly. She turns on the monitor quickly and puts the wand on my stomach. Alex finally puts his phone away and scoots closer to me. "She's in the right position…you see how she's in a nice head-down position?" She points at the screen. "She looks really good…her heartbeat's…strong." She moves the wand over. "…But you see how little the blackness around her is? There's not enough fluid for me…" She keeps moving the wand. "…Have you noticed any discharge, Jo? Anything at all?"

"No." I shake my head. "The only thing different from last visit is that the Braxton Hicks are happening every day."

"Alright." She moves the wand over towards my bellybutton. "…I just need you to take off your pants for me…pants and underwear." She wipes the gel off my belly for me.

"…Is it normal for her to get an internal exam now? Is there something wrong?" Alex helps me stand up off the table. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"

"I don't think so, I just wanna be sure." Dr. Maxwell puts the ultrasound stuff away. That was the fastest ultrasound I've ever had in my life. It's usually longer and I usually get a better look at Aubree. I'm siding with Alex. It sure seems like she's prepping me to tell me something's wrong with my baby. "There's no need to worry yet." She reassures us. I hand my panties and my pants to Alex and sit back up on the table. I put my feet in the stirrups and try to relax. Usually, I feel so bare and exposed when I get vaginal exams but I'm just scared right now. "I need you to relax, Jo." She puts a glove on her one hand and puts her other hand on the outside of my vagina. I bite my lip when she puts her hand up there. I look over at Alex for comfort. He's looking at what Dr. Maxwell's doing to me though. "…Are you guys all ready for her? Everything done up and ready for her to come home? Are you guys prepared?" She starts asking questions but I think she's just trying to get me to relax.

"Yeah… her nursery's ready…we have her clothes and stuff…I think we're ready." I try my hardest to relax. "I'm just ready to not be pregnant anymore…" I look over at Alex again and he's still heavily concentrated on Dr. Maxwell.

"…Well I hope you guys are ready." She takes her hand from between my legs and throws her glove away. "…Because I'm gonna go ahead and induce you tomorrow." She picks up my chart and my heart just falls into the pit of my stomach. Alex sits up straight and I think I might pass out. "I'm not happy with the amount of fluid around her and while it's not causing serious problems right now, I want to catch it before it causes any real issues. And your pregnancy's been rough anyway…so the risks are minimal and she should be perfectly fine if she's born at 36 weeks. So I think it's time we take her on out." She smiles at me.

"…Now? Like…now? Now NOW? Like…now? I'm…. I'm gonna have a baby by the end of the week? I'm gonna be a…a….a…a mom…by the end of the week? You're inducing me…tomorrow? Is that….is that….what you said?" I'm freaking completely out, oh my god. I'm not okay. Alex is all smiley and happy but not me. I'm not ready….I'm not…I still…I still have four more weeks to get ready. No. I'm not having a baby tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or NOT NOW. Not now. "I….I…I don't…" My hands are shaking so badly. "We…we can't…. no, I can't have a baby! Not right now….I still have FOUR weeks….okay? I'm NOT ready to have a BABY right now…do you understand what I mean when I say that?!"

"Jo…" Alex touches my back.

"NO, GET OFF OF ME…" I swat his hand away. "…I canNOT have this baby right now…" My hands are shaking….my body is shaking. "Can we just wait? Please?" I feel a tear trickle down my cheek. "I don't wanna do this…I really don't wanna do this…" My heart is beating fast. "I'm not ready for this…. Alex, I'm NOT ready…."

"The baby is healthy right now…she's perfectly healthy and she's okay to come out." Dr. Maxwell starts getting all soft with me but I don't need soft. I'm NOT having a baby by the end of the week. I REFUSE to have a baby by the end of the week. She's not due until the FIRST. It's April 5th. APRIL 5th. "Jo, she's perfectly healthy right now and if we keep her in any longer than past this week…we risk losing you, losing the baby… This really isn't up for debate. My goal is to get the baby out safely and she's safe for now…but next week, she won't be. Your fluid is DANGEROUSLY low for her to stay in there past…three days at the most." She closes my chart. "Now it's either I induce you tomorrow or you'll be delivering a dead baby…."

"But I'm not…." I shake my head. "I'm not ready yet…"

"…She'll come around." Alex stands up and hands me my pants. "…Okay, now tell me what I need to do. What time should I have her here and stuff?" He completely disregards me and starts talking to Dr. Maxwell himself.

"Have her up on the labor and delivery floor by 5:00 tomorrow morning. She's already about 20% thinned out so it shouldn't take really long but I want her here early just in case it does take hours or days. I want the baby out within two days and I don't want her labor to take any longer than that. So 5:00 tomorrow morning. Make sure she showers before coming here. No waxing or shaving. She can eat a light meal tomorrow morning but nothing heavy… like waffles or an apple is good but no sausage or bacon…nothing greasy because she Pitocin could make her sick. I would prefer her to have an empty stomach but if she's hungry, something light won't hurt."

"Okay… I'll have her here by 5:00." Alex takes the packet of papers Dr. Maxwell hands to him.

I swear to GOD I'm not having a baby anytime soon. I swear to GOD. I'm not even ready to have a baby yet. I had…I had four more weeks.

I'm not ready…

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN:** If you want to skip this author's note, go ahead. It won't make a difference to me if you read it or not and you won't miss anything if you don't read it, I promise. I just thought I owed it to you guys to address a few things.

First of all, I do read every review. I get the reviews sent to my cell phone as emails because I like reading what you guys have to say, whether it be good or bad. With that being said...

I'm sorry if I've disappointed anyone by dropping story lines. I wish I didn't have to, but I just felt like the story was getting to be too long and if I touched on story lines that I wanted to touch on, this story could easily be about 90 chapters, maybe more and I didn't want to make you guys bored with the story by making it so long. If I knew that dropping story lines would make you guys upset with me, I wouldn't have done it. So I really do apologize if I've disappointed anyone by doing that. Really guys, I'm sorry.

Secondly, I also apologize for any continuity errors. I wish I had the time to write a chapter, edit it, reread it, reread other chapters and then post it but I don't. I'm still in high school and a lot of the time, I write when I get a moment between essays, papers and projects for my AP classes. So I don't have time to go through and read stuff to make sure things make sense, and that's my fault. So I'm sorry if I've confused anyone by the timelines and stuff because I do write chapters and then post them after I'm done writing. Essentially, I'm making this story up as I go. So the continuity is off sometimes and sorry for that. I just don't have the leisure time I would LOVE to have to make sure everything goes together because a lot of time, I'm rushing to get an update up because I have other things that need done but I HATE to leave you guys hanging for more than two days. It would bug me if an author left me hanging for weeks so I try to be conscious of that. It's my irresponsibility, really.

And Thirdly, I'm not used to writing to a specific character. It's challenging to write for characters as well established as the ones that come from Grey's Anatomy. Every character is so unique and it is very weird to have them act out of character, but it's also very hard to make sure everything is actually IN character because I'm used to creating my own characters with their own backstories. And it's hard whenever we barely get Alex-centric episodes or Jo-centric episodes, so alot of the time, I'm just guessing how they'd react in a certain situation. So yeah, I'm sorry about if they do out of character things, but I try.

So yeah... this is my apology to you guys. I have an idea for a new Jolex story that I want to start working on after this story is over and I promise if I post a new story, I will make a better effort to time the stories out so I don't have to drop story lines, I'll try to make sure things add up and I'll try harder to make sure they're all in character.

So again, sorry guys! But thanks for reading and being understanding anyway! :)

-Rae.


	59. Here I Come

"I'll be back over in a little while." He stops the car directly outside of Steph's house and unlocks the door for me. I guess this is still me and Steph's apartment, but I haven't talked to her in two weeks, since the fight. She was really upset after we argued so I decided to give her a day to cool down. I tried to talk to her the day after the argument but she was still mad so I've been sneaking into the house before she gets home from work every day to grab clothes. Then for the most part, I've been staying over Alex's house since Steph is still mad at me. From day one, this is what I was afraid of. I was so scared that me and her were gonna have a fight and that would be the end of it. When I first decided to move in with Steph all those months ago, this was the first thing I thought about. And my worst fear came true. Steph's mad at me, we argued, we haven't spoken more than two words to each other in two weeks and I've been slumming it over Alex's just to avoid her. "Jo?" He calls my name because I'm really just zoned out right now. I collect my thoughts and look over at him, putting my hand on the door handle. "I said I'll be back in a little bit…I'm gonna go lock up at home and stuff."

I nod my head and open the door. I'm not nervous to go in here and face Stephanie. It is kind of wracking my nerves that I have to go in here and face her knowing that she's mad at me, but that's really not the reason my head is so messed up. My head is so messed up because I'm about to have a BABY. I'm gonna go into my house alone tonight and sleep, and when I leave it tomorrow, I won't be coming back without a BABY. I'm not ready for that yet. I'm only 36 weeks pregnant. I was supposed to have four more weeks to prepare and suddenly, I'm being thrust into having a baby within the next couple days. I'm not ready to have a baby yet…I still don't know what I'm doing. I still need a little bit more time. I walk up the steps that lead to the front door and use my house key to open it. Steph's home, I know. Her car is parked outside in the driveway. I turn the knob and walk through the front door and I hear the TV playing the Law & Order theme song. I kick off my shoes and slowly walk into the living room.

She's curled up on the couch with a blanket tucked neatly and snugly underneath her chin. She lifts her head just slightly to look at me then flops back down on one of the throw pillows. She hasn't spoken to me in two weeks so I haven't gotten the chance to tell her that Alex is okay with letting her in the room. Come to think of it, I don't even think she'd want to be in the room anymore. She's mad at me. It'd seem fake if I just came in here tonight and told her. So I won't talk to her and I won't tell her. I'll just let her be mad at me. I walk quickly past the TV so I don't interrupt her and go straight to my room. It's only 8:30 at night but I have to be up around 3:30-4:00 tomorrow morning so it'll be an early night for me anyway. I open the door to my bedroom and sit down on the bed. Alex told me to come in here and pack my bag for tomorrow but I don't know what I'm supposed to pack. I just want to lie down for the night. I don't think I've had enough time to process what's happening to me and I just need some time and I just want to lie down. I'm about to become a mom, way sooner than I had planned on becoming a mom and my best friend isn't talking to me. I just need time.

I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm not coming back without a baby. I'm not ready to be a mom. I'm so scared. This is gonna be so much pain, I'm gonna be a horrible parent…. I don't want a baby. I don't want her, I don't want her…I should've gotten an abortion. I don't want this baby. I'm not ready. I just want to run away and curl up in a ball and sleep my life away. I don't want her. I thought I did…I really thought that I was gonna be okay with her but I'm not. I'm not ready for this. I'm supposed to be packing my bag for tomorrow but I don't know what I should pack. But I'd better get on it because I don't want Alex to come back and get mad because I can't find anything in my body to possess me to pack a damn bag. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing. The only thing I know I should pack is a bag for this baby. She needs a pacifier, I think. I should bring a bottle, right? And clothes. She's gonna need clothes. I don't know…

I pick myself up off my bed and go over to the corner of my room where I threw my diaper bag. The diaper bag is actually something I bought myself. It's a faint pink color with brown polka dots all over it. I liked it and I actually had the money for it so I bought it. I unzip the bag and pull all the brown cardboard stuffing inside of it on the floor. …I really need Stephy. I toss the diaper bag on my bed and go back to the living room. I don't know if she's still mad at me, but it's worth a shot. I stand next to the couch, forcing her to look at me. She picks up the remote and pushes the "pause" button before she looks at me. She doesn't say anything though, she just looks at me. "…I went to the doctor's today." I start. We haven't spoken more than a couple words to each other in two weeks and this is the way I'm gonna start this. She shrugs her shoulders, silently telling me that she doesn't care. "They told me that… something's wrong with the fluid around her and she has to come out as soon as possible." She doesn't shrug this time but she doesn't say anything either. "So I'm getting induced tomorrow. I have to be at the hospital by 5:00 tomorrow morning."

"What are you telling me for?" She mumbles and looks away from me and now at her fingers. She starts picking at her nails. "What do you want…me to tell you good luck? Good luck."

"…I wanted to tell you that…" I tuck my hair behind my ear. I'm tired of her being so nasty with me. She's gonna be there for the birth of my baby whether she likes it or not. I don't care. I need her in the room with me. The last time I was freaking out the way I'm freaking out over having this baby, my boyfriend was bleeding out and dying in my arms. And you know who kept my head on straight during that? You know who made sure I didn't cave in during that? Steph. And tomorrow, if I act the way I acted and freak out the way I freaked out when Alex got shot, I'm gonna need her here with me. So she needs to get off her high fucking horse, get her shit together and come with me. "I was gonna tell you that you better get off your ass and go to sleep, because we're leaving the house at 4:30 tomorrow morning." I roll my eyes at her and walk away.

"…You still want me there?" She sits up and the look on her face just makes me smile. "Even after I…acted like a total bitch towards you…even after I basically treated you like crap just because I was PMSing… you still want me there?" She sounds excited and I can't help but laugh a little. "And this is something that YOU came up with, right? …You want me there and you told Alex that you want me there and he's okay with it?"

"Yeah." I sit down on the arm of the couch. "I'm freaking out a little bit here…and literally the only person that can talk me down off these ledges I put myself up on, is you. And I'm gonna need you there to talk me down." And that's the truth. I'm gonna need Steph in the room really bad just to make sure I'm thinking clearly and a lot of the time, she's the only person that can do that. Alex doesn't even have the ability to calm me down the way Steph does. So yeah…I need her there. But on one condition. "Me and Alex came up with a compromise though." She perks up to listen to me. "You both can be in the room while I'm pushing. But…If I decide to let somebody hold my legs, it's gonna be Alex. Alex gets to hold my legs while I'm pushing. And you have to understand something, Steph…okay? I already had this talk with him so don't think I'm picking on you, because I'm not." She nods her head. "But you have to understand that in certain situations…like tomorrow, for example…Alex comes first. I'm having HIS baby…okay? So yeah…he comes first in that situation. And you have no right to make him feel any less in that room tomorrow, because he's not. He's the dad and Aubree's our baby…so this is a big deal for him."

"I get that." She stands up and walks over to me, specifically to hug me. "I just wanted to be in there for you, Jo. I didn't want to be in there just to piss Alex off or just to be the first one to see your baby. I wasn't trying to be malicious about it and you know that." She rubs my back and I reciprocate the hug. "And I didn't mean to be so snappy with you. I was annoyed at how you just let Alex talk you into things but I never meant to get that mean. I was just…PMSing for the most part." She keeps on hugging me. "And if you really think it'd be better for me to not be there, that's fine. Seriously, it is. If YOU don't want me there, I won't be there. I just wanted you to make that decision…not him."

"I know." I keep my arm wrapped around her torso but I pull back from the hug. "You were right. Sometimes, I just… do whatever you guys want because I don't like to make the wrong decision when it comes to you and Alex. And it's not always necessarily what I want. So I'm sorry for that. But I did take some time and I did decide that I want you there as MY support system and I want Alex there as well. But there are boundaries for you. Like…Alex can do some things that you can't tomorrow and I know that you understand that. I won't let him treat you wrong. I won't let him be mean to you, I promise. But if he feels uncomfortable with you being there in a certain situation, then you have to back off." She nods and mouths the word "kay." I'm so glad that me and Steph are on the same page again. And I always knew that Steph would understand. I know Steph and I know that she would never try to intrude on Alex being a dad. That's just not the kind of person she is. But I'm staying strict about that. I'm starting to understand how to be the mediator between Alex and Steph and I'm setting boundaries. "…Okay but now I need your help now." I clear my throat. "So Alex is coming back over in a little while and I'm supposed to be packing… will you help me pack?"

"Of course I'll help you pack." She finally lets me free of the hug and happily starts walking back towards my room. "Do you have any idea of what you should back?" She opens up the door to her room to get back to mine.

"I was gonna wait for Alex to come back to pack my bag because he'll know what I should bring." I follow her into my room. "So I was just gonna start with packing Aubree's bag because that seemed easier." I grab the diaper bag off my bed and go over to the drawer where I keep all of Aubree's clothes and yank it open. "Should I pack diapers? And a bottle?" I grab a handful of onesies and put them on my bed so we can sift through them. Steph grabs the other handful. "And you can help me pick out her coming home outfit." I hold up a purple onesie. "…She's not gonna fit any of these, I don't think. These are all so small…she's not gonna be this little." Steph sits down on my bed and goes through the clothes as well. "…Is it bad that I'm not excited, Steph? I'm not excited…" I cross my legs and pick up a pink onesie. "I'm scared."

"It's okay to be scared, Jo." She stops looking at all the clothes and turns her attention back to me. "Your life is about to change…I'd be more worried if you weren't scared." She scoots over towards me and lies her head down on my shoulder. "But just think…you're about to have a baby. You should be excited to meet her. You spent the last eight months of your life taking care of her and now you're finally gonna get to meet her. You get to see the person that's been kicking you, punching you…be excited about that."

"…I'm scared that I'm not gonna love her though, Steph." I take my bottom lip between my teeth and take a deep breath as my eyes start to sting from tears. "I'm panicking so bad because I realize just how much I don't want this. I'm not cut out to be a mom. I was fooling myself…" I wipe my eyes. "And what if…what if they put her on my chest tomorrow and I don't feel anything? I'll be a monster. I'll be a real live monster if they put my kid on my chest and I don't love it. I thought I loved her. I was fooling myself all this time and I heard today that they were gonna make her come sooner than expected and all the love went away. I don't have any love left…it all went away and now it's fear. There's no love, just fear. I'm so scared…" My hands are shaking again like they were in the doctor's office. "…I screwed up, Steph. I screwed up….I don't want her…I don't want her…"

"Jo, stop it." She puts her hands on my cheeks and squeezes my face. Her eyes are wide and her face is hard, expressionless. She means business. "Stop it. You're freaking out right now. Stop trying to make yourself seem like a heartless bitch because you're not. You're gonna love your baby. You're just scared right now. Stop it though. You're talking out of your ass. Snap out of it." She grabs my hands. "Look at you. Look at yourself…you're a mess. Shaking and crying and stuff. Calm down. You're psyching yourself out and you need to stop it. You know damn well you love that baby. Just stop it…okay?" I just look dead ahead at the wall. She doesn't get it though. I'm literally SO scared. So scared that I want to crap my pants when I think about going to that hospital tomorrow. I can't even move. "…Now lemme see. Lemme see your belly." I hold my breath and lift up my t-shirt for her. She gasps when she sees it. "Look at your belly! You're so big!" She touches it and I smack her hands away. "You got so big…"

"…She's gonna be a month early…" My voice comes out in a dead, droning tone. "I had a month left… I had a month left to get ready for her…and they're taking that month away from me…"

"Well obviously it's not safe for her to stay an extra month. And if the doctor says she's gonna be okay then she's probably gonna be okay. Stop freaking out so much…"

"I can't."

* * *

><p><strong><span>Alex's Point of View<span>.**

Since I'm the only one awake right now, I take the time to make sure everything's in place. I pick up Aubree's diaper bag first and open it up. Diapers, a pacifier, a coming home outfit, nursing bottles, socks, a tiny little jacket just in case it's cold on the day we bring her home, a bow to match her coming home outfit and a soft-bristled hairbrush…just in case she has hair when she comes out. I don't think she will have hair but you know, I can't tell for sure. I was a bald baby and both Aaron and Amber were baldies too. So I really don't think Aubree has a chance at having hair but just in case, we have a brush anyway. Jo and Stephanie did a good job at packing Aubree's bag. Since it's well packed up, I zip it and put it back into the corner of Jo's room. I grab Jo's bag next. We packed her bag together last night but I just want to double check to make sure she's not forgetting anything. She's about to go through labor and childbirth…she's gonna want to be as comfortable as possible. Two nursing bras, a pair of pajamas, sweatpants, a loose t-shirt, her iPod, three changes of underwear, her wallet, three blankets for Aubree, fluffy socks, her hairbrush, her toothbrush and some toothpaste and a pair of slippers. I think this is all she'll need. I zip her bag back up and put it with Aubree's bag.

It's 3:00 in the morning and I'm already up. I didn't get much sleep last night but that's only because I'm too excited to sleep. Jo fell asleep around 12:00 so I'm not gonna wake her up until like 3:45. She needs to rest. Me? I don't need to rest. I'm fine. I'm staying up until Aubree's born. I'm like a kid on Christmas morning right now. I'm so excited to just get this going. Sure I'm nervous… I'm nervous about actually being a dad. But I'm more excited than I am nervous. I'm just so excited to meet my baby girl already. I walk over to the chair in Jo's room that I put my clothes on last night. I undress myself and pick up my pair of sweatpants I brought to wear. I feel kind of bad about having to wake Jo up so soon. She was upset last night so I kept her up until midnight trying to convince her that she's gonna be okay. I know she's nervous to have a baby. She's nervous about being a mom, she's scared about how much this is gonna hurt and she's just scared to do all of this. So I sat up late last night just talking to her about it.

I pull my t-shirt over my head as well and tiptoe through Edwards' room to get to the kitchen. I brushed my teeth already, I washed my face, I combed my hair, I made sure both bags are packed accordingly. The three of us are taking my car to the hospital, so I made sure that her car seat was installed properly. I did everything. Now all I have to do is wait until it's time for Jo to wake up. I really hope this day isn't super long. I've been present for my fair share of births, back when I was working with Addison, and I know that these things can take hours. I think it'll take a while for Jo as well, because she has to wait for everything to happen. They have to break her water, they have to wait for her to dilate all the way, they have to make her have contractions…there are a bunch of steps we have to go through before she even starts pushing. So I'm expecting it to be a while before we actually have Aubree, but I'm hoping that it doesn't take ridiculously long. I need to meet my baby girl sooner, not later.

I am somewhat worried about all of this though. Ideally, Aubree shouldn't be coming for another four weeks but if the doctor says it's time, it's time. I've been around babies that are born prematurely and some of them make it and others don't. The closer to 40 weeks a baby makes it, the better chance they have at surviving. Aubree's not gonna die or anything like that. She'll be fine being born at 36 weeks. I'm just worried about some of the problems she could have. Obviously I know about everything that could go wrong with a baby born early because I treat babies born early for a living, but I haven't really been telling Jo. I don't want her to freak out any more than she already is freaking out so I've been keeping it to myself. But seriously, Aubree has the potential to have to take a trip up to the NICU. She probably won't have to, but I know that she might.

I try to push aside the thoughts about the things that could possibly go wrong with my baby girl and open up the fridge so I can grab something to drink. I grab one of the bottles of water they keep in their fridge and twist the cap off it. I turn the bottle up to my lips and take a long sip. And even though I tried to not think about the things that could go wrong, I can't help it.

Babies born at 36 weeks could have a bunch of issues. Aubree could end up being jaundiced because her liver's not completely developed yet, her immune system is still pretty under-developed which means she could end up catching an infection, her lungs aren't fully developed either so she could have some trouble breathing…and plus, the part of her brain that tells her to breathe isn't fully developed either so she might forget to breathe every now and again. She probably won't feed very well because her suck and swallow reflex isn't strong enough yet, and not to mention, she probably doesn't have enough fat on her body to control her temperature. I know all of these things could possibly go wrong with her but then on the other hand, she could end up being perfectly healthy. The only thing that's really bothering me is the fact that keeping her in for an extra month would be more deadly than taking her out early. That's a scary thought.

I dusted off the water so I throw the empty bottle in the trashcan and tiptoe back through Edwards' room to go back to Jo's room. When I get back to Jo's room, her light is on and her bed is empty. She's not in here so she must be in the bathroom. So I open up the bathroom door and go inside it. The shower water is running and her clothes are in a pile on the floor. I go to the shower and pull back the curtain just a little bit. Not enough for her to notice but enough for me to be able to see inside. I wonder how long it's gonna take her to notice that I'm looking in the shower. She's washing her hair and mouthing something to herself. Her head is tilted back and her eyes are closed and she's scratching her fingers through her hair. She turns so her back is facing me again and put her entire head underneath the spray. I kind of want her to notice that I'm watching her. So I slide my hand into the shower and touch her hair.

"…You are so weird." She flings her hair back, getting me wet. "What's wrong with you?" She finally opens her eyes and just glares at me. I pull back the curtain some more and she cups her hands around her boobs. "…Do you mind?!"

"Nope." I close the curtain back and sit down on the toilet seat. "Come on babe…it's baby day. Look alive."

"Get out…" She whines and pokes her head out of the curtain. "Seriously, Alex. This is my one moment of privacy I have left. I'm about to be lying butt naked with my business exposed to at least three different nurses and an obstetrician, plus you and my best friend. Please? I'm trying to enjoy my privacy before my modesty goes out the window."

"Why are you taking a shower in the first place? You're about to get dirty all over again, so what's the use?"

"Well I don't want to smell bad." She closes the curtain back up and continues on with her shower. "These people are about to be all up in my crotch…the least I can do is make sure it doesn't stink."

"….You never stink though, babe." I rest my elbows on my knees and sigh. I wish I could fast forward a couple hours. I'm so eager to meet Aubree.

"I know that." The water shuts off and she reaches her hand out to grab her towel. "And I'd like to keep it that way." She pulls the curtain back and steps out. "…You have to promise me that you won't judge me." She tucks her towel under her armpit and goes to the sink. "You can't think my crotch is gross after this." She grabs a toothbrush from the medicine cabinet and turn on the sink water. "After you see it all…stretched and exposed like that. You can't think it's gross anymore." She puts toothpaste on the toothbrush and starts brushing. "Oh, and sorry." She leans forward and spits. "If it's never tight again after this… like really…I'm sorry. But just remember that you did it. You put her in there…so if it's never tight again, it's your fault."

"I'll still like it." I shrug and stand up. "I'm sure it'll still be…tight and stuff. It'll still do its job." I walk over to her and kiss her cheek. "It's baby day… lighten up."

She rolls her eyes at me and smiles. "I'm gonna go wake up Steph…" I don't know how she isn't excited.

It's baby day.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"Did you text Heather and Leah and Shane?" I put my phone down on the little tray that folds out across my bed glance over at Steph. She's sitting on a loveseat over by the window with her legs pulled into her chest, staring down at her phone. We've been here for a little over an hour now and things are still pretty calm. I'm not in any pain at all right now. Alex ran down to the cafeteria to grab me a bagel and some apple juice since I'm still feeling okay enough right now to eat. The nurse told me that it's okay if I eat something right now, while my stomach is still settled. Knowing Alex, he probably stopped along the way to tell his friends that I'm in here getting ready to have the baby because he's been gone for twenty minutes now and it doesn't take twenty minutes to run to the cafeteria. "Steph." I call her name because I don't think she realized I was talking to her a moment ago. She's too engrossed in her phone. She looks up and over at me. "Did you text Heather, Leah and Shane? Tell them to come visit me when they get a free minute after rounds." I know their shifts haven't started yet—they won't start for another half hour or so since it's only 6:30—but I'd still like for them to know that I'd appreciate visitors.

"Yeah. Leah said they all had planned to stop by after rounds." She unfolds her legs and stands up to walk over towards me. I scoot over to make room for her to sit down next to me when she makes it over. I'm careful not to bump any of the many devices hooked up to me, though. I have an IV taped in my right arm that's hooked up to the drug that's supposed to make my cervix soften and give me contractions. It's called oxytocin…er, Pitocin. I have a blood pressure cuff on my left arm that's monitoring my blood pressure to make sure it doesn't spike or drop, I have a monitor on my left index finger to monitor my pulse and I have a white belt wrapped around my stomach to monitor Aubree's heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and all that stuff. I've never had so many things hooked up to my body at one time before. "I texted my mom last night and told her that you were getting induced today, and look what she sent me…" She sits next to me and shows me her phone.

**Text Message**

**Monday, April 6, 2015**

**6:33 a.m.**

**Ma: **ok make sure u ask her if its ok for u to send me pics after shes born. tell her good luck and tell her i said 2 bring that baby 2 see me! tell her i said luv u both

"Your mom is so cute." I pick up my own phone. "Gimme her number…I'm gonna text her back from my phone." I pop open a new message. Steph hits her mom's contact on her phone and shows me the number I can use to text her back. I punch the number into my own phone and compose a new text message. I know it's not really a big deal or anything but it is a big deal to me that Steph's mom sent that. She didn't have to text Steph all of that. And she definitely didn't have to tell her to tell me that she loves both me and Aubree. It's just a little bit surreal to me to see that she said all those things. I consider Steph's family my family. They treat me well while I'm over her house, they're nice to me, they let me sleep in their house and all that stuff so in that aspect, that makes them family in my book. But I didn't know that they—especially her mom—felt that way about me as well. I have to text her and thank her. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't.

**Text Message**

**Monday, April 6****th****, 2015**

**6:36 a.m.**

**Me: **hey mrs. edwards, it's jo. i just wanted to say thank you for the text you sent to steph. i appreciate it a lot. & of course i'll send you pictures of her when she's born. & depending on the weather & how i'm feeling, maybe i'll bring her down to meet everybody this weekend. thanks again & me and aubree love you too!

"Hand me my iPod…" I point to it lying on the stand next to the monitor that tracks Aubree's heartbeat. She leans over to grab it and hands it to me. She's back to scrolling through her phone but she's lying in the bed next to me. I appreciate how they give the pregnant patients the bigger beds in this hospital. The bed is wider than normal hospital beds and it's a lot more comfortable. The sheets are thick and soft and they're white. I think it's stupid how they dress the beds in all white sheet sets when they're bound to get all bloody and stuff but whatever. I turn on my iPod and put a headphone in my ear while I wait for it to boot up. "I wish Alex would come back with my food. I'm hungry…" I mumble. Steph's too engaged in the happenings of her cell phone to pay me attention. But I slide one of my headphones into her ear, just in case she wants to listen to music with me while I wait for Alex to bring me my food. I put my head against Steph's shoulder and look through her phone with her while my music plays.

"Cyclone?" Steph stops scrolling through her phone for a second to laugh at me. "Really, Jo? Cyclone?" I playfully tap her on her shoulder for making fun of my music taste. I really should update my iPod. I should take all the old stuff off it and just replace it with new stuff. She keeps scrolling through her Facebook timeline though and I just watch. "…She moves her body like a cyclone…and she makes me wanna do it all night long…" I move my foot along in tune with the music while Steph sings and close my eyes. I'm tired but more than I'm tired, I'm hungry. From the ear that doesn't have a headphone in it, I hear the door to my room open up and I perk my head up in hopes that it's Alex with my food. Wrong. It's a nurse.

I sit up straight and pause my music and take my headphones out of both me and Steph's ear. Steph doesn't even pay attention to the fact that there's a nurse in here. I guess she doesn't need to. It's just the same nurse that started my Pitocin. "Sorry to bug you again, honey." The nurse shuts the door behind herself and walks further into my room. I didn't care enough to learn her name but she's really sweet. She's older, with short white hair and thick glasses. "I'm just gonna check and see how you're progressing." She goes over to the sanitizing station and grabs one single glove. I'll admit…it's a little weird to know that in a couple hours, this is the room my baby's gonna be born in. Off in the corner to the side, there's a little table with a light over it, where they'll take her after I have her to clean her off. I don't know, this is just a weird experience. "I know this can be a bit bothersome…"

"You're fine." I shake my head and bend my knees so she can check me properly. I do appreciate how they respect my privacy. They keep a blanket over my lower half at all times…even when they're checking me. "I just thought you were my boyfriend coming back with my food…I'm starving." She pulls my blanket back just a little bit so she can get her hand underneath of it. She takes her two fingers and sticks them up my crotch. I wrinkle my brow and bite my lip at that and Steph holds onto my hand. It doesn't hurt, but I don't care how many vaginal exams I've gotten throughout this whole pregnancy…I'll never get used to someone shoving their fingers up my vagina.

"…Everything feels good…you're dilating well." She takes her fingers out and takes off her glove. "You're four centimeters and 30%. So I'm just gonna go ahead and increase your dose of Pitocin…just to move things along a little faster since you're responding so well." Just as she says that, the door opens again and Alex walks through it this time with a bottle of apple juice and a white container. And I don't know why, but Dr. Robbins and Dr, Grey are both with him. The nurse doesn't stop explaining things though. "Are you in any pain right now?" I shake my head and look past her at the people Alex brought back with him. "Alright, so with this higher dose, you're gonna start feeling some pain. I'm not gonna lie to you…your contractions are gonna get pretty intense within the next hour. If they get so bad that you can't handle them…" She starts messing around with my IV. "Just push that red button and I'll be back in here." I nod and watch her up my dose of Pitocin. "Are you interested in pain management? Did you want the epidural?"

"…I don't know." I look at Alex. He's setting up my food for me, smearing cream cheese on my bagel. "I kinda just wanted to wait… like…if I can't handle the pain then I'll get it but if it's bad…I'll get it. So can I wait?"

"Sure." She nods her head at me and rubs my arm. "The next time I come in here to check on you, your contractions will probably be pretty intense…so we can go from there. If you want the epidural by that time then I'll page the anesthesiologist and we'll get you all taken care of." She makes sure my IV is taped well then moves to check on Aubree. "The baby looks fine…she's handling the medication well." She looks at Aubree's monitor and checks all aspects of it. "..So I upped your dose…your contractions will be getting pretty intense…red button if you can't handle them. Other than that, I'll see you in another hour to check up."

"Thank you." I reach over and grab the bagel and the juice Alex brought for me. The nurse leaves the room and shuts the door behind herself. I take a heaping bite of my bagel and close my eyes. God, it's so good. I was so hungry. I wipe the corners of my mouth and lick my lips. "…So how did I know that you were gonna bring people back with you?" I say to Alex. I take another bite of my bagel and chew. "I knew you were bringing people back…"

"They just came to see how you were doing." He stands next to me and kisses my forehead. I like how he's making an effort to be easy on Steph. He's not screaming at her to get out of the bed with me so he can sit down. He's nice about it and he's just standing. I appreciate that. He strokes my hair away from my face and looks down at me. "They just came to see how you were doing, babe." He kisses my head again. "It's not every day you get to knock a hot intern up…" In typical Alex fashion, he chuckles and smiles at me. I slap him in his stomach since my mouth is too full of chewed-up bagel to yell at him for that snide comment.

"You said no to the epidural…bold move, Wilson." Dr. Grey sits on the edge of my bed. "Bold move."

"I know." Dr. Robbins' eyes get wide. "I was shocked…you're tough."

"Yeah, I don't know how tough, though." Alex puts his arm around my shoulder and hands me the apple juice he bought. "I don't want you to be in pain, Jo. The second it gets too much for you to handle, I'm telling them to pump you full of drugs. I don't think you understand how intense this is gonna get. You're not in pain now…but she just gave you a pretty heavy dose of oxytocin and you're gonna be in here screaming in like… 45 minutes."

"I'll be okay, Alex…" I take a sip of juice. "I just don't want her to be born all drugged out…I have a pretty high pain tolerance." I'm way too scared to be a mother right now. I'm way too scared to have this baby and I don't know the first thing about being a mom. But I know that it's not fair for Aubree to be born with drugs in her system all because I was a punk that couldn't handle a little pain. I'm really gonna try to not need drugs.

"Alright babe…" He kisses my cheek.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Alex's Point of View.<strong>

"Jo…" I sit down on the bed next to her and put my hand on her back. She's curled up in a ball with her face burrowed in the pillow and she's hanging on to the bars of the bed. We're about three and a half hours into her induction and she's really being a trooper. Really, she is. But I don't like seeing her like this. "Babe, you want some ice?" I rub her back but she throws her elbow back at me and shakes her head. She refuses to get the epidural. I don't know if she's just trying to prove to me that she's tough or whatever but she doesn't have to prove anything. I know she's tough. She's been going through two full hours of intense contractions and she hasn't even screamed yet. She's been really quiet for the most part. She's sweaty…her hair is sticking to her forehead and I can always tell when she's having a contraction because she starts breathing really hard. "Babe…" I call her and put my hand on her back again. She throws her elbow back again.

"…Don't touch her." Edwards is sitting next to her face, keeping her hair from falling into her face. "She told me to tell you not to touch her."

"Alright." I just watch her to make sure she's okay. The nurse just left about twenty…twenty five minutes ago. She upped Jo's dose again so her contractions will be getting even worse soon. They're upping her Pitocin every hour on the hour until she gets to ten centimeters and 100% thinned out. The last time the nurse checked her half an hour ago, she was six centimeters dilated and 70% thinned out. So we're almost there but I think it'll be another few hours until she actually starts pushing. I watch Jo's knuckles flare out and get red as she grips the bars of the bed. She's contracting. I haven't seen her face in about an hour. She's been face down in that pillow curled up into a ball for about an hour now. "Do you want ice now babe?" She doesn't answer me. I reach out and stroke her back. I know she doesn't want to be touched but I can't help it. She's in pain. I hate seeing her in pain like this. I wish she would just get the epidural. I know she's tough but she doesn't have to suffer.

"Get off…" She throws her elbow back at me and groans into the pillow. She breathes hard and heavy and squeezes the bed rails some more. Edwards moves her hair out of the way. "Stop…Steph…" She sounds like she's crying. I wouldn't be surprised if she's crying because I imagine she's in unbearable amounts of pain but it's so heartbreaking to hear her voice while she's in pain like this. "…Mmmm…." That's the first pain-related noise I've ever hear d her utter. I think the higher dose is kicking in again. And the door opens. Both me and Stephanie look to see who's coming in but Jo doesn't budge. I don't think she cares. But it's nobody but Dr. Maxwell anyway.

"How are you doing, Jo?" She picks up the chart from the counter and flips through it. She looks a lot different from all the times I've ever seen her in the office. She's not wearing her glasses anymore and her usually flowy blonde hair is tied back into a high ponytail. And she's wearing light pink scrubs. "…Still not talking?" She asks me and Steph because the last time she came in here to check on Jo about fifteen minutes before the nurse even came in, Jo was in this same position. "I need you to watch out real quick, Alex…I'm gonna check her and see if I can break her water yet." I stand up and move out of her way. "…Jo, can you roll over to your back for me?" Jo lets go of the railing she had a death grip on and slowly, reluctantly, rolls over so she's lying flat on her back. She still has her face covered with her arms though. "Her contractions will be kicking up here in a few minutes… the Pitocin in this bag is almost gone." I fix her hospital gown around her neck so her boobs don't come out or anything and Edwards fixes her hair up. I can't see her eyes or her nose, but I can see her mouth and she's biting her lip. Dr. Maxwell puts a glove on and puts her hand underneath Jo's gown. "…I'm gonna go 'head and break her water now." She nods and takes her hand out. "Jo…I'm gonna break your water now…and hopefully we'll have a baby in about two hours…"

"…I can't take this anymore." She takes her arms away from her face and shakes her head. Her face is so red that she looks like she's sunburned. And it's kind of scary because her eyes are so bright brown but her face is beet red and she's sweaty. She's crying too. She has tears lining the rims of her eyes and spilling out onto her cheeks. "I want the drugs…I want them." She nods her head. "I want the….Ohhhh god…" She closes her eyes and bites down on her lip again.

"She can have the epidural…. Can you give it to her?" I grab ahold of her hand but she pulls away from me. "She can have it now… She wants it." I really can't deal with seeing Jo in this amount of pain. I look up to see how much Pitocin is left in the bag that the nurse hung a while ago and the bag is entirely empty. Her contractions are gonna be really bad in a second.

"After I break her water, I'll get the anesthesiologist in here right away and we'll take care of her pain." Dr. Maxwell put on both pairs of her gloves and she's grabbing ahold of this long, white plastic hook-shaped thing.

"I need it now… I need it right now…" Jo covers her hands over her face again and breathes in and out. "I can't wait…" She's still pretty tame. I'm waiting for this higher dose of Pitocin to kick in. "Oh my…GOD. OH MY GOD…OH MY GOD…" Yeah, that's kind of what I was expecting. That's more along the lines of it. I grab her hand so she has something to squeeze but she won't take it. "AHHHHH! GOD! NO! NO! I NEED THE DRUGS….I NEED THEM RIGHT NOW!" She's shaking her head. "I NEED THEM! AAAAAAHHHH!"

"Shhhhhh…" Edwards puts her hands on Jo's face. "Shh…Jo… stop screaming…"

"I CAN'T! I CAN'T!" She shakes her head some more and she's crying so hard. "…Steph…I can't do this. I can't do this…"

"Yes you can…you can do this." She just pushes Jo's hair away from her face. "You've been doing it this long. You're fine… baby girl, you're FINE. You're gonna get the epidural in a little bit and you're gonna be fine. You're fine." Jo nods her head at her and calms down a little. Okay, so I'm kind of starting to understand why Jo wanted Stephanie to be here. She is helping to calm her down. "…I wish you could see this thing your doctor's sticking up your vagina right now… talk about a way to lose your virginity." That makes Jo laugh.

"…I feel like I peed." Jo tries to sit up a little bit. "…Did I pee?"

"No… I just broke your water." Dr. Maxwell tosses the hook thing away and takes off her gloves. "I'll be right back with the anesthesiologist and we'll get you that epidural." She looks over at me. "She's progressing very quickly, actually…I'm pleased. And baby Aubree seems to be handling the stress very well. I want to have her pushing soon." She puts her hand on Jo's shoulder. "So I want to talk to you guys about what's gonna happen after she's born." Jo perks up a little bit but not much and I listen hardcore. "As you guys know, she's gonna be a little early… so I'm just gonna take her and I'm gonna have a neonatologist look at her right after she's born, just to make sure she's fine. Of course I'll let you two have your cuddle time after she's all cleaned up, but if her APGAR is any lower than a seven, I'm gonna have to take her away right away. These are just precautions. She seems to be doing fine which generally means she'll thrive well outside of the womb, but she is gonna be a preemie so we have to do the necessary preemie things."

"Right." I nod. "…With all due respect ma'am… I would like to be the pediatrician on her case. I don't really…give a damn what kind of rules that breaks but I don't want anyone else touching her. If she needs to stay in the NICU, if she needs injections for her lungs, if she's jaundiced… I'd like to be the one to care for her. I'm more than qualified and you can contact my superior if you need to, her name's Arizona Robbins…she'll give you the ok." Maxwell writes all that down on Jo's chart. I don't know if they'll allow that but I don't care. If Aubree is sick after she's born, NOBODY else is touching her. I'm her daddy, she'll be more comfortable with me giving her shots and stuff and plus, I don't trust anyone else BUT me. I will be the doctor on her case and I don't give a damn what else is said otherwise. "…So how long do you think it's gonna be until we have a baby?" I ask.

"I wanted to say about two hours…" She shuts Jo's chart. "But I'm gonna change that to about an hour because she's progressing so well. I'll get her the epidural and I'll be back with that. Then I'll give the epidural about half an hour to kick in before I give her the last and final dose of Pitocin that should take her all the way to ten and 100%. And about half an hour after that, I'll have her pushing…so I'd say about…an hour and a half tops."

Hour and a half… hour and a half until I meet Aubree.


	60. Greetings

"Here, babe…" I grab the plastic spoon I picked up in the cafeteria and plunge it into the cup of crushed ice I ran down to grab for her. I fish a spoonful of crushed ice out and hold it to her mouth. She's still having those really intense contractions because she hasn't gotten the epidural yet. The anesthesiologist that was supposed to come in here to get her epidural started had another pregnant patient to tend to before Jo so she's waiting. I won't lie, I was pissed when Dr. Maxwell came in here and said that Jo would have to wait another twenty minutes before she got her epidural. I know we have more than one anesthesiologist and more than one nurse anesthetist that work here. So Jo's supposed to just sit here in pain because the jackass is running behind his schedule? "It'll be soon…" I pull the spoon out of her mouth and put it back inside the cup. "It'll be soon, babe…"

She purses her lips to suck on the ice cubes she has in her mouth. The look on her face is not at all hard to read. She's in pain and she's not afraid to let that be known. She put herself back in the same position she was in before. She's hunched over curled into a ball, hanging onto the bars of the bed with her face burrowed inside the pillow aside from her mouth. I do not by any means like seeing her in this much pain, but I do kind of like the sound of her breathing hard. Jo makes breathing sound pretty, if that's even possible. I pull her hair out of her face and kiss her temple. She's so sweaty that my mouth is soaking wet but I don't care. I put my hand in the middle of her back and rub. "Alex…I need you to not touch me…" She says, the tone of her voice flat and ominous. "Please stop touching me…"

"Are you mad at me?" I ask her. I glance over at Edwards. She's on her phone texting something to someone. The last time she was sending a text message, she was updating the other interns on what was happening with Jo. I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that that's what she's doing now as well. They were supposed to come up here and visit Jo while she was still feeling well enough for visitors, but rounds took long this morning and by the time they were done, Jo was having really bad contractions and she said no to having anyone come in here. "Jo?" I call her name and put my hands on the bars of the bed. I bend my knees and kneel down to face her. "…Are you mad at me, babe?" She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. I glance up at the monitor screen that tracks Aubree and notice that she's having a contraction right at this very moment. I'm kind of amazed by her. She had a fit of screaming earlier and I expected that. But since then, she hasn't made a peep. She's so strong. It's crazy, but I find something new to love about her every day.

Jo moves her body just slightly to adjust herself so she has a better grip on the bed handles. When she moves, the back of her gown falls open because she wouldn't let us touch her long enough to close it after Dr. Maxwell put a patch of numbing cream on the area where she'll get the epidural out. So her butt is hanging out and Stephanie takes it upon herself to close up her gown for her, which isn't a good idea. "If I have to tell either one of you to stop fucking touching me one more fucking time…" Jo spits out, the words rolling off her tongue like fire. Stephanie starts to explain that her ass is hanging out the back of her gown, but Jo interrupts her. "I don't give a shit…don't touch me." Stephanie takes the hint and takes her hands away from her. Since she doesn't want to be touched, I just pull the blanket up over her butt. I'm not gonna let her just lay here with her ass hanging out. I will say one thing about Jo while she's in pain. She's just a little bit mean when she's in pain. She cusses a lot, she rolls her eyes, she bitches at us and she just acts like she doesn't even want us around. She swung off on both me and Stephanie. She elbowed me twice for rubbing her back and she pushed Stephanie's hands away for trying to touch her hair. So yeah, Jo's a little bit mean when she's in pain. I'm not taking offense to any of it though. I know she's not really this mean on a daily basis and I know for sure if she had gotten the epidural in the first place, she'd be much more pleasant. She wasn't this mean this morning when she wasn't in this much pain. Childbirth typically does make some women evil.

I shovel another spoonful of crushed ice and hold it by her mouth. She refuses it this time by pushing the spoon away so I take the hint and put the cup of ice down on her bedside stand. I'll try again later. I sigh and sit down in the swivel chair next to her bedside. I wish she'd let me at least hold her hand. But Jo's so hard to nurture and coddle. She absolutely hates to be pitied, hugged, rubbed…all that stuff. She won't even let me hold her hand. Stephanie tried to hold her hand but Jo scratched the shit out of her so she'd let go. I knew what I was getting myself into with Jo. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I knew that she's not the cuddling type and I got that, because I'm not a huge cuddler either. But I want to hold her hand and I thought maybe she'd turn into a cuddler for the day since she IS in so much pain but nope. The only thing the pain's done is make her more independent.

Behind my back, I hear the door open up. I turn around in my chair and look. It's Dr. Maxwell, a little redheaded anesthesiology intern and one of the oldest, most experienced anesthesiologists we have here at SGMW. Finally…they're gonna put her out of her misery. "Alright Jo…are you ready?" I glance over at her and catch the tail end of her nodding her head. Dr. Maxwell turns a brighter light on in the room and walks over to us. "This is Dr. Cox and his intern, Kaitlyn. They're gonna take care of your epidural and I'm gonna check on the baby to make sure she's tolerating everything well…and then we'll get you the last dose of Pitocin and we can start pushing." I sneak in a little pat on Jo's hand and surprisingly, she doesn't try to crucify me for touching her.

"Okay, let's get you sitting up…" The anesthesiologist starts shoving on gloves while the little redhead stands near the back to observe. I grab onto Jo's hands and help her up to a sitting position. Edwards moves her hair out of the way so it's not dangling down her back and stands on the other side of me. I hold onto Jo's hands so she can stay upright in the position she needs to be in to get this thing. I know lying down is the only thing that's comfortable to her right now but she has to sit up. Dr. Maxwell opens up Jo's gown and exposes her bare back to the man. I don't know if I like him looking at my girl's ass…but I'll put it aside. I'll kick that guy's ass if he even pops a stiffie looking at my girl and I know that…and just knowing that I'll kick his ass is enough to make me settle down. "Lean forward just a little bit more for me." He puts his hands on Jo's shoulders and pushes her forward just a little bit more. Very surprisingly to me, Jo actually leans forward on her own and puts her arms around my waist in a hug. She has her face buried in my lower stomach and she's holding onto my shirt. I knot my fingers through her hair just to let her know that I'm here for her.

The anesthesiologist grabs a sponge soaked in dark red saline and scrubs it across Jo's back. "It's just saline, babe…he's cleaning you off." I mumble to her. I know she probably wants to know everything that's happening to her and since she can't see for herself, I'll be her eyes. I watch as the guy scrubs over all the sexy little beauty marks she has on her back. He picks up a tiny needle and pops the cap off. "He's just gonna give you something to numb your back…it's not the big needle yet." I bend my head down to kiss the top of hers. "Be still…" I watch him gently push the small needle into her back. She doesn't say anything to express that she's hurting but she does squeeze my shirt. She's so tough. "All done with that." The guy throws the small needle on the tray and picks up the big one. "He's doing the big needle now, babe… just squeeze me if it hurts." It shouldn't hurt her though. He just numbed her so it shouldn't. I look away just as he shoves that huge needle in her back. Even Stephanie had to look away. Jo doesn't even budge. She doesn't scream, cry or anything.

"Catheter's going in…" The anesthesiologist weaves the thinnest catheter I've ever seen through the needle and into Jo's back. "And that's it. That's the hard part." He takes the needle out gently and puts it on the tray. He grabs surgical tape and puts a little tape around the catheter to hold it in place. "Now I'm just gonna give you a test dose to make sure it's getting to you properly…and if all goes well, I'll give you the full dose and you shouldn't be feeling anymore pain within about ten minutes." He grabs the smaller bag of medicine next to the bigger bag and hooks it into her catheter. Jo takes her arms from around my waist and sits up straight while the guy squeezes the small medicine into her catheter. Dr. Maxwell gives him a silent thumb up to let him know that Aubree's tolerating the medicine well.

"Did it hurt?" Stephanie sits down on the bed in front of Jo and wipes her face off.

"Not really… I didn't really feel it." Jo politely moves Steph's hands away and wipes her own face.

"Looks like everything's well." The anesthesiologist puts the bigger bag of medicine into the catheter and gives her a larger dose. "My work here is done. Good luck here. Come on, Dr. Rogers." He motions for the redhead to follow him and she does.

"Thank you." Jo tucks her hair behind her ears and scoots backwards. I help her to move back so she's sitting against her pillows. I think she's feeling better already, which is good. Maybe she won't be so mean anymore. Dr. Maxwell starts messing around with the IV in Jo's arm. "Are you giving me more Pitocin?" She asks and Maxwell gives her a very subtle nod while she's hooking the stuff up. "…And then I'm gonna push?" Maxwell gives her another nod. "…This epidural… it's good shit." She lies back on her pillow and closes her eyes. Yeah, she's definitely feeling better already. She's talking, for one. And she's not being so evil and mean. "…I think I wanna take a nap, actually. Do I have time to take a nap before I start pushing?"

Maxwell cracks a smile. "Someone's feeling better." She checks Aubree's monitor. "I don't think I've ever seen you be so aggressive and rude before, Jo. I was shocked." Jo's cheeks flush bright red as she cracks a nervous, embarrassed smile. "And you can do whatever you want. If you feel like you need to sleep for a little while, go ahead. You won't miss anything but dilation, effacing. I'll be in here with a couple nurses making sure everything's prepped and ready to go for her big arrival. And I'm gonna run up to the NICU and tell the neonatologist to be ready… I'm just gonna be doing some last minute things. If you want to sleep, go on ahead." Jo nods. "One question though… are you losing feeling below your waist?"

"Yes…and it's great." She pulls her covers up to her neck and yawns. Well I guess she would be tired. She didn't sleep much last night to begin with and she's been dealing with pain all morning. I'm glad my babe's finally getting some relief though. I don't like seeing Jo in pain. All seeing her like that made me do is realize that I can't take seeing her in insane amounts of pain like that. "My feet are tingling…is that normal?" She looks up at me for answers. I nod at her. It's normal for her bottom half to be tingling for a little while. It just means that the medicine is spreading. "I'm gonna take a nap guys, okay? Wake me up when it's time…"

"Alright babe." I pull her covers to make sure they're completely covering her so she's comfortable. I bend down and kiss her lips. "Love you."

**X X X **

**IMessage**

**Monday, April 6****th****, 2015**

**12:02 p.m.**

**Mere: **Baby?

**Me: **Not yet. Soon tho. She got the epidural like 45mins ago. Waiting 4 her 2 dilate all the way then time 2 push.

**Mere: **Hows she doing?

**Me: **Shes good. Shes tuff. Sleeping rite now bc the epidural rlly helped wit her pain enuff so she can sleep 4 a lil while

**Mere: **ok well keep me posted. Me Cristina Bailey Callie n Arizona are patiently waiting 4 pictures :)

**Me: **ill send u some as soon as she gets here n ill let u kno when jos ok enough 4 u guys 2 come see her n aubree

**Mere: **sounds good

I put my phone on the stand next to Jo's phone and just stare at her while she sleeps. She looks really peaceful and it puts my mind at ease how I've been tracking her contractions on the monitor. I don't know why, but I find it so comforting to know that she's contracting on regular intervals but she's sleeping through them. Just an hour ago, she would've been cussing and swinging through contractions but she's asleep now. I find it very comforting to see that she's okay and in such a small amount of pain that she can sleep through them. I admire the hell out of her for trying to do it without drugs. Seriously, I think Jo's amazing for making it as far as she did without needing any assistance. I reach through the bars on the bed and touch her stomach. _Come on, baby girl. I'm so ready to meet you already. Come on. You'll like it out here, I promise. You have the most beautiful mommy and your daddy….he's a stud, if I do say so myself. Come on baby girl. I'm ready for you. _

I glance over at Edwards to see what she's doing. She's sitting on the couch next to the window on her phone while it's on the charger. I guess having her here isn't that bad. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, I admit. I thought I was gonna hate having her here and I thought I was gonna be annoyed the entire time but I'm really not. Having her here isn't really all that bad and I do appreciate how she's really just here for Jo. She's not here to piss me off and get in my way. She's here for Jo and for Jo only and I like that. Since Jo's sleeping, I loop my hand through the bars on the bed and hold her hand. I kiss her fingers and sigh. "…You know I don't like you much…"

She puts her phone down and looks over at me. "I know." She looks at me like she really doesn't give a shit that I don't like her. "And the feeling's mutual."

"But thank you…" I stroke Jo's fingers. "For being there for her when I'm not. For giving her someone when she has no one. She really does appreciate you, you know. She talks about you a lot…and she thinks about you a lot. You really are her best friend." I clear my throat. "And she's part of my life now…so that means that you're part of my life… so I think you should know that I'm really trying to like you."

"She's my best friend. I've never had a friend like Jo before. I trust her with my life and I love her to death…like a sister." She uncrosses her legs and leans forward. "And okay, yeah…I got a little jealous for a minute there. Because she just wants to be with you all the time and I kind of guess like I was losing my best friend for a minute there. And I blamed you for that, yeah." She sighs. "But you make her happy. She loves you. Really, she does. You should've seen her when…" Her voice trails off but I know she's referring to the shooting. "She was a wreck over you. She loves you so much. And you hurt her. You hurt her a lot… and she's my best friend so… I mean…when she comes home crying about you and when she vents about how much of an asshole you're being, of course I'm gonna take her side and dislike you." She folds her hands. "But for the record, I really am trying to like you too."

"I'm not gonna hurt Jo though." I keep playing with her fingers while she sleeps. "There's no reason for you to dislike me over the possibility of me hurting her again because that's not gonna happen. I'm not gonna hurt her. I love her." I'm kind of glad I'm having this talk with Edwards. "And honestly…you have no reason to be jealous. You don't have a reason for that. You're not losing her. Believe me when I say that. She was upset for that whole week you two went without talking. She thinks of you as a sister too, Edwards. She does. So really…you don't have to be jealous." I run my hand through my hair. "I kind of understand the feeling though. I used to get really jealous of you two too. I just wish I could be to her what you are. You're…you're her person. I wanna be her person but I'm not. You are. And I guess we have to share her."

"It's not really that, though." She shakes her head. "I was just having a hard time accepting that you're a bigger part of her life now. She's having a baby with you and I'll never top that bond. So maybe I am her person or whatever… but you're more imperative to her life than I am." She shrugs. "…You know…" She looks dead at me again. "I felt like I had a duty to Jo to hate you for a while there…so I've been telling myself that I don't like you but I guess you're really not half bad. And sorry… for being in here."

"No…thank you for being in here. She was freaking out and I didn't know how to calm her down. I couldn't have done that." I look at Jo. She looks like her mind is at ease. Her eyes are closed easily and her lips are pursed together in a peaceful manner. She looks perfectly poised. "I can do a lot of things for her, y'know. I can… make sure she's taken care of. I can hold her while she cries. I can make her a mother… but one thing I can't do is calm this woman down when she's on one of her tangents. And I can't talk to her about woman problems, obviously. So really Edwards…thank you. I'm so hung up on being the only person in her life but she needs you. She needs a friend that she can go to whenever I can't be there for her. So thank you."

"…I'm going to do something, okay?" She stands up. "And I don't want you to think I'm soft or sucking up or just trying to get on your good side because that's not what this is." She walks over to me. "And Jo told me about this. She told me that you're not really…a hugger or anything, but I don't care." She puts her arm around me and gives me a hard squeeze. "…You're not half bad…"

I reluctantly put my arm around her as well. "You're not half bad either." I truly am glad I had this talk with her. I think it's important for Jo (and for Aubree too in certain ways) that me and Stephanie are on good terms. Jo loves us both and the honest truth is that we share her. I don't like it and Stephanie doesn't like it either, but it's what it is. We share Jo. And there are some aspects where I'm more important to Jo than Stephanie is and there are other aspects where she's more important than me. I don't like it at all…but we do. We share Jo. And Stephanie is about to be my child's godmother so I'd better learn to like her.

I think me and Edwards are turning over a new leaf.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Jo's Point of View<span>.**

Everything is honestly just happening so fast. I just woke up from my nap no more than half an hour ago and everyone is already changing stuff around. Dr. Maxwell is in here and she's putting a papery blue gown over her scrubs. Standing off to the side over by the table where they're going to take the baby after she comes out are two people. There's an older woman with long, dark black hair folding up a white towel and making sure the exam table is soft enough for the baby. She's checking the lights to make sure they work, she's making sure she has everything that's gonna be necessary. And running through my chart is a woman with a skin complexion as dark as Steph's. She has short, crop-cut dark brown hair and she's really nice. She's the neonatologist and I think she said her name was Dr. Williams. This really is happening too fast. It's so weird. It's like everything around me is moving in regular time but I'm moving in slow motion.

I can't believe this is really happening to me. I can't believe that I'm in a hospital room on a maternity floor, getting ready to start pushing a baby out of my crotch. I feel horrible and I'm too scared that the look on my face is gonna give me away. I don't want a baby. She's coming out of me in less than half an hour and I don't want her. What kind of person am I? I feel like the worst person on this earth, but I swear to god I'm telling the truth. I don't want this baby that's about to come out of me. I don't even…I don't even want to hold her. I don't want anything to do with her and I never did. And I wish I did but I don't. I can't help but think that it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it for me. The horrible, HORRIBLE contractions I was having…all for a little bastard baby that I don't want? Those contractions were something else. It was weird because not only was my vagina hurting, but my butt hurt too. Like deep in my butt, I felt this horrible, aching sensation that I never want to feel again. It really felt like I was trying to poop out a razor blade. And for what? For a baby that I don't want.

Steph is standing up by my head, texting Heather and Leah and Shane. She doesn't want to be down there. She doesn't want to watch me push and I kind of understand. Alex is standing by my legs. He's not right where Dr. Maxwell is gonna be sitting but he's positioned to where he can look at both me and this baby when she comes out. He's so excited…and he's been so amazing. I was mean to him for a while there and I feel bad for that, but I was mean to everyone. I wasn't mean to Steph right away because I needed her to calm me the hell down. I was acting a fool when those contractions really hit. I was screaming and crying and just acting like a damn fool and she cooled me down for the time being but after I got a handle on my emotions, I was so mean to the two of them. I think I swung at Alex twice, cussed Steph out like six times and scratched the hell out of her for touching me. I didn't mean to be that mean…I really don't even know where that came from. I've never really been in that type of pain before so I didn't know how to cope and I guess it made me mean. I wasn't trying to be mean and I don't want Alex to think I hate him because I don't. I was just in pain. I don't even blame him for this. I don't blame him for this situation because, well…it takes two to make a baby. I was in pain and that's the ONLY reason I didn't want him to touch me. I owe them both an apology though, because my attitude was atrocious.

"Okay Jo… it's time." Dr. Maxwell ties a scrub cap on top of her head and starts pulling back my blankets. "It's time to meet your little girl." She pulls the blankets up and bunches them around my stomach so my bottom half is naked and exposed. She pushes a button on the side of the bed to drop away a part of the mattress so the bed isn't so long, so she can get close enough to deliver the baby. I'm having an anxiety attack so bad right now. It can't be time. I'm not ready for this and I can't do it. I can't… do this. I know what I can and cannot do and this is something that I can't do. I can't have a baby that I don't want. This is gonna destroy me. I don't want this baby and I really think I'm gonna hate her when she comes out and I don't think I'm gonna love her and this is gonna break me. I don't even know what I'm doing. "Are you ready?" She has the brightest smile on her face and I'm just crying. Not happy tears though. I don't wanna do this. "We're gonna start pushing in a couple minutes." She sits down on a stool in front of me.

"…But I don't know how…" My hands and my arms are shaking and I really need an oxygen tank right now because I can't breathe. I really don't know how to push. I mean, I've been pushing since I woke up from my nap, but it wasn't real serious. I was pushing just to make sure the damn baby would move down correctly but that was easy. I imagine actually pushing the kid OUT will be a different story. "How do I push?" I had eight months to prepare for this and I'm still not ready. I don't know how to prepare for something I never wanted. This isn't something that I'm good at. This isn't a test I could've studied for or an A that I can take higher to an A plus. This isn't my GPA that I'm trying to improve. This isn't an appendectomy that I fucked up, but I'll do better next time. This is a baby I'm about to have and a baby that I DON'T want to have. A baby I never really wanted to begin with. I don't wanna be a mom… "I don't know how to push… I don't know how…" Dr. Maxwell is too busy looking at the baby's monitor to tend to me right away.

I just look at Alex. He's so excited. I wish he could pass some of his excitement to me because I don't have any excitement whatsoever. I look at Steph. She's texting her mom. …Alex has been great. Steph has been great too with calming me down and I can really use her to calm me down right now. But Alex… he deserves to be happy because he's the only one that really wants this baby to be born. "…Steph." I tap her on her arm. She puts her phone down and looks at me with wide, honest eyes. "…I need you to understand something." I whisper to her. She nods her head, looking worried. I motion for her to bend and she bends down to my face. I have half a mind to tell her about the thoughts going through my head. The thoughts about me not wanting this baby. But that's not what I want her for. "…I love you, okay? I love you…and thank you so much for…being here." She nods again. "But I really need you to go." A tear slips from my eye. I do want her here for me. I do. But I'm gonna do something for Alex. After all he's done for me, I'm gonna do something for him. "I will… I will send him out to get you as soon as she's born, I swear. I don't even want you to go to the waiting room. Don't go to the waiting room. Just stand right outside the door." I hold her hand. "You're my best friend, okay? And you know I'm not doing this to be mean… I'm not." I sniff. "I just need you to go. This has to be special for him. And I don't want to take anything away from this moment for him. I don't want to take anything away from him. So I need you to understand…and I need you to go."

"I understand." She nods her head again and looks like she really does. I don't sense any disappointment, irritation or even sadness. I think she really does understand. "Of course." She leans down and wipes my cheeks. "You can do this, okay?" She whispers to me. "I know what you're thinking and I know that you're thinking you can't. But you can. Jo, you can do this. I love you too, girl." She gives me a long, hard hug. "I'll be right outside." She lets me go and kisses my forehead. Without another word, she grabs her cell phone and gives Alex a pat on his shoulder, a silent gesture that says "good luck." She quietly disappears silently from the room.

Alex looks down at me with a confused look on his face and I just shake my head, silently telling him not to question it. I did that for him. I made the decision on my own, though. It's something that I wanted him to have. I wanted him to have this magic moment for himself. He shouldn't have to share this with anybody. This is the birth of his child…the child he actually wants. He shouldn't have to share it with anyone. I did that for him and for the fact that I want this to be special for him. I see something move from the corner of my eye, so I look up. The black haired doctor that was working on the table where they'll lay the baby at is standing next to where Dr. Maxwell is sitting. I'm so not ready to do this. I'm not ready. I'm not ready to resent my child. "Jo, I'll coach you through the pushing…okay?" She puts her hands on my knees and opens my legs up. "Your body's gonna tell you what to do. I know you don't know how to push but that's okay. Your body will let you know how to push. Your body's gonna have this feeling…and follow that feeling. It's a lot like having a bowel movement. You don't have to think about it, your body's just naturally gonna do it. Let your body to do it. Just help it."

"Are you ready?" Alex looks down at me with a wide, giant smile on his face. I honestly just shake my head. He puts his hands on my legs and holds it up. He told me he wanted to hold one of my legs and I told him that it was okay if he did. He leans forward to look. I really wish he wouldn't look though. I don't need him to see my crotch like this. I don't need him to see it like this…

"On this next contraction Jo…I want you to bear down with your butt. Push your butt as hard as you can into the table and bear down. You can squeeze something, you can hold the backs of your legs if you need to, you can scream if it'd help… but I need you to bear down as soon as you contract. You should be contracting in a couple seconds here." She puts her gloved hands on my legs and pushes them open some more. _Damn…how far open do they need to be? I can't do a split. I'm not a gymnast. _"Contraction right now…I need you to push…" I don't want to push. I really don't want to do this. I want her to stay in. I don't want to have her. I can't. But I feel another hand on my leg and I remember that that hand belongs to Alex. So for that reason, I hook my arms underneath my legs and close my eyes. And I push down with my butt like Dr. Maxwell said to. And I close my eyes because that helps me concentrate. Dr. Maxwell was right. My body is kind of telling me what to do. It's just this feeling. I feel like I HAVE to push. It's like a must. "1…..2…3…4…..5…" Dr. Maxwell counts out loud. "Okay, breathe…"

I let out the breath I was holding while I was pushing and breathe heavy. It doesn't hurt to push. No, pushing doesn't hurt at all. It's just tiring. I can't feel anything below my waist so no, it doesn't hurt. It's just so tiring. "…What does it look like?" I ask Alex. His eyes are locked between my legs and he's holding my right leg open while the black haired doctor holds my left one. He looks so enchanted, so excited. I've never seen Alex react this way before…to anything. "I said what does it look like, Alex?" I ask again since he's too mesmerized by what's going on between my legs to answer me.

"…Nothing yet." He shakes his head. "You're not crowning yet." He mutters, pulling the blankets back some more so he can get a better look. "…You want a mirror so you can watch?"

"No." I shake my head. Definitely not. If I see a baby fly out of my you know what, I'll be freaked out for the rest of my life. I don't want to see it at ALL. I believe him when he says it doesn't look like anything. I'll just take his word for this whole thing.

"Another contraction, Jo… push for me." I grab the backs of my legs again and push down with my butt. "We're gonna take this one to ten, okay? Push….push…." If she tells me to push one more time I'm gonna kick her in the face. What the fuck does she think I'm doing? Sitting here? I am pushing. "1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…" I feel her put her hand against my stomach and push on it a little. "And 10…" She takes her hand away from my stomach. "Breathe…"

I lie back and just rest. Pushing is a lot of hard work actually. And I feel so shitty because I'm pushing and I'm doing all this for a baby that I don't want to be born. Why am I doing all this? "…Can I have some water?" I ask. I really just wanna push and get this shit over and done. I'm over this whole having a baby thing. I'm so done with this. Alex grabs the bottle of water he got me way earlier and holds it to my lips. I take a sip of it. "Thank you…" I look up at the ceiling lights. I can't stop thinking about how much I don't want this. Does that make me a horrible person? I think it does. My vision gets all blurry from tears welling up in my eyes but I hold them back. "Can you see anything yet?" I don't feel good…

"Nah." Alex shakes his head. "…Are you okay, Jo?" He looks at me with a very worried look on his face. I don't even get the chance to shake my head before I feel the throw up shoot up my esophagus. I clasp my hand over my mouth so it doesn't spew out and Alex hurriedly grabs the basin they keep at all pregnant women's bedsides. "Here… here." He holds it by my mouth and I just open my mouth to let it out. Bagel and apple juice and ice and water just came out of my stomach. He wipes my mouth for me and puts the water back up to my mouth so I can wash it down.

"That's normal… lots of women actually suffer from bouts of nausea while they're pushing. That's not at all uncommon." Dr. Maxwell puts her hand on my stomach again. "Are you feeling well enough to start pushing again?" I nod my head at her. I feel a hell of a lot better, I just had to puke. I don't know where the hell that came from but I feel better. "Okay… we're gonna take this next one to ten again. Are you feeling okay?" I nod again. "Okay then push…" I pull myself up by the backs of my legs, close my eyes and bear down and push. Damn…. I swear I didn't realize pushing was this much work. I'm so tired already and I didn't even have the damn kid yet. "1…2…3…." I open my eyes because I have unshed tears that need to come out. I see Alex's entire face just light up. "And there's a head…there's a head with some hair on it. Keep pushing…don't let up…" Dr. Maxwell sounds like she's having fun with this. "4…5…6…7…8…9…10." I lie back to rest. I don't know what I'm feeling. I just can't believe this is happening. She said there's a head… this is actually happening to me. "This next contraction when you push, I'm gonna stop you at five. I want to turn her a little bit so I can suction out her nose and her mouth before you push the rest of her out."

"That hairbrush is coming into good use." Alex grabs onto my hand and leans down to kiss me. He's so happy. He's SO happy. Why can't I just be happy too? Why can't I want this baby as well? Why can't I be like him? Why don't I want my baby? "You sure you don't want a mirror? You should see it, Jo… you should see it. It's beautiful, babe…"

"I don't wanna see it." I shake my head but I'm feeling weird again. Not nauseous, but I feel like I shouldn't have stopped pushing in the first place. I need to push. "Can I push? Please let me push…" I don't even wait for Dr. Maxwell to coach me through it because I can't. I need to push. I really need to. "I have to push… I have to." I grab my legs and close my eyes again. I grit my teeth because for some reason, this pushing spell is a lot harder than the rest. I feel like something's actually coming this time. Like something's actually coming out.

"You're doing good, Jo…you're doing good." I feel Dr. Maxwell pulling while I'm pushing. She seems rushed, like this wasn't something she had planned on doing but I really couldn't help it. I had to push. It was just this feeling that I had where I NEEDED to push. Alex stops holding my hand, which is a direct indication that something serious is happening down below. I push my chin down into my chest and push hard. "Just one more little push… one more little one." She's pulling simultaneously with my pushing. It's not a hard pull though, it's more of a gentle tug. I don't want to do this… I want to stop. But my body won't let me stop. I'm not ready to have her. I'm not ready to be done. I swear I'm not ready. And I feel some tears slip out the corners of my closed eyes.

All of a sudden, I don't have to push anymore. I don't have to push, I don't feel the need to keep pushing and everything just feels different. Alex's hands completely leave my body and I just feel…relieved. Like everything is just over. I still have my eyes closed because I found it easier to concentrate on pushing while my eyes were closed. I feel lighter below my waist. I feel like I can stop straining so much and I feel so much relief. I'm so tired. I swear, all I want to do is go to sleep. I didn't know it was possible to be this insanely tired. I'm not in pain because the epidural is still working it's magic on me of course, but I feel so tired. I feel exhausted…like I just ran a marathon. I open my eyes slowly, and just as I do, I feel a heavy pressure resting on my chest. It's like a weight was just put on me. And something touches my arm. I make it a point not to look below my neck, so I just look at Alex. He's not even paying attention to me. He's paying attention to the heavy thing on my chest.

Something is all over my arm. Something warm, wet and gooey. It slides down my arm, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. _Get her off of me. I don't want her here. I don't want her on my chest. _I blink once so my tears can just fall and get out of my way and when I finally tune into my surroundings, when I finally blink to bring everything into focus, I see something greyish from the corner of my eye…but I'm too busy looking at Alex to pay attention to the greyish thing. I feel like if I don't look at it, it's not really there and this is not really happening. Alex is hunched over touching it while the black haired doctor is all over it too, rubbing it. I don't know why I keep calling it an it when I know that it's actually a she. _It wouldn't hurt to look at her…would it? _I put my head down and finally…just give her a good look. Her skin is greyish and a little bit blue. She has red blood all over her and green mucus-like stuff all over her. She has hair…and it's all slicked down. I glance at Alex and catch a glimpse of him cutting off her umbilical cord. When he snips it, deep red blood spews from it. _Wait…she should be crying. She should be crying. Why isn't she?_

I hear something about "needing stitches" and "tore pretty bad" but I don't really care about anything. I go to look back at her, but just as my eyes settle on her, the black haired doctor scoops her up off my chest and takes her away. "…Wait." I prop myself up on my elbows. Alex is trying to hug me and kiss me but my focus and attention is across the room. "…I didn't get to hold her… I thought I could hold her." I swat Alex away so I can see better at what they're doing to MY baby over there. "…Alex, go over there. Go over there right this second… what are they doing to my baby?" Dr. Maxwell is still working between my legs to take care of the afterbirth and stuff and I don't really care. "Go over there!" I yell at him. He kisses my cheek one last time, getting his happy tears all over my neck, then finally goes over to that table. I make sure I'm listening pretty intently.

"Six pounds…seven ounces." I hear the black haired doctor's voice. "And 18 inches long." She's shouting at me. Careful not to disrupt what Dr. Maxwell is doing to me, I push myself up on my hands and look over there. Alex went to go get Steph, I think. They're rubbing her pretty hard over there. The dark-skinned doctor is putting a diaper on her while the black haired one is rubbing her in hard circles. She stops rubbing her and starts moving her legs around. I think they're giving her her APGAR assessment. I wish I could see better. The black haired doctor takes the cap off of a shot and mercilessly sticks my baby in the thigh with it. _I will fucking kill you. You can be more gentle over there with her, bitch. _She yanks the needle out of my baby's thigh and that finally makes her cry. "APGAR score is a seven." Her cry is so pretty. It's little and weak but it's so cute. I kind of feel like that's her "I'm pissed off" cry.

Steph walks back into the room with a red faced, crying Alex. She has the widest smile on her face as she comes straight over to me. Alex goes back over to the doctors working on my baby and starts chatting them up about her APGAR score. "What was it like?" Steph gives me a hug. "Alex said you were amazing…he said you did so good." She strokes my hair back. "I knew you could do it… I knew you could." She keeps hugging me. I know it's rude but I'm not even paying attention to anything that's going on around me. I'm not paying attention to the fact that Dr. Maxwell is done stitching me up. I don't care that she just finished taking off the many many blankets they put down to make sure I didn't bleed all over my nice clean bed sheets. I don't care about what Steph is saying. I just want to know what's going on across the room. "I'm gonna go take a look at baby girl, okay?" I nod my head. She takes her phone out and goes over to the spot where they have my baby. I like how she's my baby and I haven't even held her yet.

Steph and Alex are over there taking a bunch of pictures of her and I don't know why, but for some reason, that pisses me off. They're taking pictures and I haven't even held her. How is that fair? I watch the dark-skinned doctor wrap her up in a blanket and hand her to Alex. This whole thing is just making me want to scream. HELLO! I JUST PUSHED HER OUT! CAN I HOLD MY MOTHERFUCKING CHILD YET?! Naturally, Alex has her in his arms and he's crying so much. Which even though I'm severely annoyed, makes me smile. He's so in love with her already and it shows. He's whispering little sweet nothings to her while he's holding her and staring at her. Okay, this is cute. But seriously… Steph is taking so many pictures. Alex starts walking towards me, kissing her forehead every step of the way. "I got somebody for you to meet… yes I do." His baby-talking voice is so cute. "You're gonna love her. I love her… so you'll love her. Yeah…you're gonna meet your mama. Yeah….how's that sound?" He kisses her forehead again. "Say, it's about time I meet my mama…" He stands beside my bed and gently…VERY gently…puts her into my arms.

My eyes lock on her and I swear, I'm in a totally different universe. "Oh…my…god." I just whisper to myself because I don't know what else to do. My mind has never been so blown in my life. I didn't know it was possible to feel so…amazed. And I don't know how to explain this, but I just…know. I know how to put her head in the bend of my arm and make sure she's comfortable enough to lay on me. I'm so glad there's not a mirror around, because I feel my face crack up. My eyes close and my mouth gets all weird and every emotion I've felt for the last eight months spills out of my eyes in the form of tears. I sniff try to get my chest to stop hiccupping so I don't disturb her. I bend my face down to my shoulders so I can wipe my face. "Hi…" Through my tear infested eyes, I look down and make myself familiar with her. "Hi honey…" I sniff again. "Can I kiss you? Do you care if I kiss you?" My mind is so blown. I'm just in shock. Is she really here? Lying down in my arms? "I'm gonna kiss you anyway…" I bend my face down and bring her up a little and put my lips against her lips. I think about all the places she just came from. About all the blood—my blood—she just had all over her less than ten minutes ago…and I just don't care. My big lips take up half of her nose and her chin when I kiss her on her lips but I don't think she minds. "I love you…" I slide my finger into the palm of her hand. "I love you, peanut…"

I reach over and slide the little pink cap they put on her head off. She has hair…a lot of it, too. It's soft and full and it's silky straight, lying perfectly forward. Her face is really swollen but the thing is…it's swollen and she's still flawless. She's the prettiest baby I've ever seen in my entire existence. Most babies come out looking like little martians, but no. Not my baby. She's flawless and oh so perfect. And as if she has my attitude already, her lip is poked out in sort of a pout-style. Like me, her hairline starts on her forehead. It starts a couple inches above her eyebrows and it flares out to make her silky head of hair. Her nose is round and her cheeks are chubby. She has Alex's nose…and his cheeks…and his eye shape…and his ears…his everything. She looks like him. "Oh…hello, my sweetie…" I touch her cheeks just to make sure she's real. I feel like my heart is swelling up. I can't believe I thought I was gonna hate her. I can't believe I wanted to abort her. I feel so bad. My face tunes up again and more tears just come out. I can't believe I didn't want her… I lean my face down again and kiss her lips. I love her so much already. My whole life is like…revolving around her and she's not even an hour old yet. I slide her hat back on her. I look up at Steph and Alex. Steph is taking more pictures and Alex is too. Steph looks down at me with her eyebrows raised as if she's saying, "Well?" I crack a smile and just shake my head. "I'm in love, Steph. I'm love… deep. Truly, madly, deeply in love."

"I knew you would be." She bends down and gets a closer look. "Hi Aubree. Hi Aubbers." She touches her hand. "You look like your mother so much…"

"Doesn't she?" Alex chimes in. "It's like Jo spit her out."

"I think she looks like you." I look back down at her. She's so peaceful; I don't want to disturb her. But I need another kiss. I kiss her lips once again. "…She has my hairline and my big ass ears but that's it."

"And your eyebrows, and your eyelashes, and the shape of your eyes and your knobby nose." Steph keeps stroking her hand.

"Those are Alex's eyes and definitely Alex's nose." Oh my god she's so perfect. I know every new mom is gonna tell you that her baby is perfect but I really mean it this time. She's PERFECT. I look up because I heard the door open. Through the doors walks the black haired doctor again. I didn't even realize that she and the dark-skinned doctor left, that's how caught up in Aubree I've been. I watch what she's doing because I could still totally beat the shit out of her for sticking my baby in the thigh all rough with a shot. Really, that warrants an old fashioned ass-kicking from me. She stuck my baby with a damn needle and she wasn't gentle. I squint my eyes at her and notice that she's dragging a plastic cradle inside my room. "…Alex." I know what that cradle is for and I know WHERE that cradle is going. I've dragged these cradles up before. I know where these cradles go. "…Alex…" I feel my arms clench up around Aubree's body and my heart just sinks.

"…Jo, you knew that though. You knew…" He puts his arm around me. "She's early. You can't forget that. She IS early, babe. And she's doing well, they just wanna take her up and make sure…" He rubs my shoulder. "They wanna help her out with her temperature and make sure she's not jaundiced. She's fine… they just want to make sure. She's a preemie, Jo…"

"No…" I hold my baby tight. They're not taking her. Good luck getting her off me. "She's fine. She's six pounds…that's enough fat on her. Her temperature is fine and she's not jaundiced. She's perfect. Leave her alone." I lean down and kiss her again. The doctor stands next to me, waiting. I'll slap the shit out of her if she doesn't get the fuck away from me. "…I just got her, though. I just got her… she's not even half an hour old yet…" I look up at Alex, as if he can do something about it. He's oddly okay with them taking her. "Please don't take my baby…" I don't want her to go to the NICU. The NICU is a horrible place…babies die every day in there. "Please… she's okay."

"Jo, it's fine." Alex gets eye-to-eye with me. "They will bring her back in a little bit so you can feed her. She is FINE. They just have to treat her like a preemie. They have to treat her like one. No matter what, she's STILL a preemie." I shake my head at him and keep staring at my Aubree. My whole world is just different. I don't want them to take her. "…I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to her up there. You want me to make sure Arizona takes care of her? I'll make sure Arizona does her exams…okay?" I shake my head. "Come on… you trust Arizona." I look at him. "…Me?" I nod. "You want me to do it? I'll do it…but I want to be here with you. I'd rather be here… but I'll do it if it makes you feel better. Does it make you feel better if I do her exams?" I nod. He's a pediatrician…he can do it. The only way I'm letting her out of my sight is if he's going with her. "Okay, I'll do it… give her here." He tries to take her but I snatch away. "Jo." I ignore him. "Josephine."

"Just wait a damn minute." I keep staring at her. I just got her. They should have rules about this. Babies shouldn't be allowed to be away from their mommies within an hour of being born. It shouldn't be this way. They shouldn't be allowed to take her away from me like this. "…I'll see you in a little bit, peanut." I kiss her lips for the millionth time. "I love you, okay?" I kiss her hands too. "I'll see you later…" Aversely, I let Alex take her away from me. "Take care of our baby, Alex. Okay? Take care of her."

"You know I'm not gonna let anything happen to her." He stares down at her and lays her in the cradle. "I'll be back to update you in a little bit babe." I nod at him.

They really shouldn't be allowed to take my baby away from me like that. I call bullshit on that.

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN:** So Aubree's here! Idk about you guys, but I'm excited to write some chapters with Alex and Jo being parents before the story winds down. Let me know what you guys thought about Aubree's birth. Some of the stuff might not be totally accurate, but I tried. I've never had a baby before so I did research a lot of stuff to know pretty much how these things work. Everything might not be totally medically accurate but I tried and I'm not a mother nor am I a med student so just bear with me lol.

And there is a picture of what newborn Aubree looks like on my tumblr. Go check it out. I included it in the page I made on my tumblr. I'll include a link-type thing at the end of this, so you can just copy and paste into your browser without the spaces. I searched the internet for a very long time for the perfect Jolex baby and I think I found one on this baby photography website. There are only three newborn pictures for the baby girl I decided on, so (much like real life newborns) her look will change as she gets older and if I find the PERFECT looking baby, I'll try and include a picture of what I have in mind while describing her when she gets a little older, like three months or so. I know how some people like to put faces to names and I'm one of those people so I'll try to provide as many pictures of Aubree as possible.

So let me know what you think. Let me know if you think "Aubree" is cute or not, based on the picture (s) :)

oh, and the page is this: flawlesspeasant . tumblr . Com (/) just - so - you - know.

(obviously don't put the slash in parentheses and no spaces between the stuff)


	61. Thank You

I push the buttons on the outside of the incubator so I can open the sides of it up. I lift the part that comes off and take it down so I can reach inside of it with ease. She's lying inside of it peacefully with her head to the side. I don't think she's asleep because on our way up here, she was moving all around. I think she's just too lazy to open her eyes at the moment which is typical, even for preemies. I put the stop down so the incubator won't move while I take her out of it and fluff up the blankets on the exam table I'm about to put her on. I'm surprised that the bedside nurse and the neonatologist are actually gonna let me do this. I'm more than qualified to do it, don't get me wrong. It's just that sometimes, delivery nurses and the neonatal staff can be cocky and a little bit standoffish to surgeons because they think we're too high and mighty to do their jobs. I put one hand underneath her body and the other around her torso as I lift her out. A really weak whimper leaves her mouth when I pick her up, which makes me smile. I'm already so amazed by her and so in love. She's the only girl to steal my heart without even trying. Gentler than usual, I lie her down on the examination table and turn on the radiant warmer above the table. I'm always gentle with the babies I work with; always. But this is actually _my _baby I'm dealing with, so of course I'm ten times gentler with her.

I grab the piece of blanket the nurse tucked under her while she was swaddling her and undo it. I open up her blanket and get a real good look at her. She's not very big but I expected that. She's small and stocky because most preemies at her gestation should only weigh around 5-6 pounds. She's well over the weight mark but she didn't grow to be long enough so all her weight is distributed over a small area, which makes her chubby. She's only about 18 inches long and she should be somewhere around 20-21 inches. Can I be honest? I'm finding it so hard to treat her like a normal baby. To do all the things I would do to a regular baby…I'm finding it difficult. All I really want to do is kiss her and stare at her for a while. But Jo's downstairs waiting for me to bring her back and update her and stuff and I promised her that I'd take care of our baby. So I grab the straps of the diaper they just threw on her and take it off. I can't believe this little girl brought me to tears the way she did. She made me cry like a baby. "…You tell anyone I cried and I'll make sure you get cold bottles for a week, kid." I crack a smile at her and pick up her chart. I write down all her brand new information to keep it on record. _Name: Aubree Jo Karev. DOB: 4/6/15 1:21 p.m. Weight: 6lbs 7oz. Height: 18.4 in. _I write down "Wilson" on a thin strip of paper and shove it in the plastic band I'm about to put around her ankle when I'm done with her.

I take a look at the APGAR score sheets they attached to her chart to see what they took off for, so I know what to watch for. I look at the one they administered one minute after she was born. She got a one out of two on her activity because she was moving a little bit, but not much. She got a two out of two on her pulse, so her heart's beating well and doing its job right. She got a one out of two for her grimace because she wasn't pulling away and crying while they were suctioning out her mouth and nose. She got a one out of two for her appearance because her color was off. She got a one out of two for her respiration because her cry was way too weak. She got a six the first time they tested her, which isn't good at all. I flip the page to check the test they gave her at five minutes. She got a two out of two on her activity the second time around, two out of two on her pulse, one on her grimace again, one on her appearance again and another one on her respiration. She got a seven the second time around which still isn't very good.

I pick up a sticky, yellow, heart-shaped thermometer and peel off the adhesive covering. I stick the thermometer on her chest and hook it up so her temperature will project on the screen. She's a little bit cold. Her temperature should be at 98.6 but she's only at 97.3, which is still good. The extra fat she has on her body is helping her maintain her temperature, because if she was as small as normal preemies at her gestation, she would be about 3-5 degrees shy of normal temperature. She's doing well. I take my stethoscope from around my neck and put the earphones in my ears. I'm not supposed to be working today so I literally had to run down to my locker in the residents' lounge and grab my stethoscope and a sterile gown. I could've handled her in the sweatshirt I wore to the hospital today but on the off chance that there are any germs on my sweatshirt, I'm not allowed to handle any preemie—not just my preemie—without sterile clothes. I hold the circular part of my stethoscope against my chest to warm it up before I put it against her chest. I take the free moment to just stare at her, completely and utterly in awe that something—someone, so beautiful could possibly belong to me.

Her body is a bright pinkish color which is really good but her hands and her feet are still blue. I'll rub her hands and her feet to stimulate her circulation. It's normal for any baby, not just premature babies, to have poor circulation for a little while. But until every part of her body is entirely pink, she can't get a two out of two for her APGAR score. _I guess I'll start with the visual exam… since I'm just staring at her anyway. _I pick up one of her feet and count her toes and pull them apart to make sure they're all normal. Five toes, so I move on to the next foot. Five toes there too. I pick up her hand and count her fingers. Five fingers so I check her other hand. Five fingers there too. I straighten out her arms and look at her elbows. I straighten out her legs and look at her leg joints. I put my hands on both her legs and rotate her hips around in a circular motion to make sure they're not displaced. I slide my index fingers into the palms of her hands and wait for her to grip them. When she does, I pull her up by her hands to test her grip. She's checking out perfectly so far. I lift her up so I can get a good visual on her head. I gently examine her fontanels to make sure they're where they're supposed to be. She should have two major soft spots, one at the back of her head and one at the top. She does. Her fontanels are good. I put her back down on the table and smile when she stretches her arms out and puts her head to the side. I don't think they should've scored her so low on the activity part of her APGAR assessment. She's just a calm, mellow baby. She didn't move much while Jo was pregnant with her so she's not moving much now. It's just her personality. I open her legs again and examine her genitals. I don't like doing this part of the exam on regular babies, let alone my daughter. I take a look at everything down there and make sure everything is okay. She looks exactly how she should look down here, everything is just a bit swollen and red. I really wish I didn't have to do this next part… _Just like she's a normal baby though. Just act like she's a normal baby that just got admitted to the NICU. _So with severe apprehension, I spread her open just to see if she'll be able to pee right. She's fine and I'm done with this. I don't like this one bit.

"Okay, baby girl… almost done." I put my hands underneath her armpits and pick her up. I lay her down on my forearm and turn her over so I can look at her back. I look at her butt to make sure her fat creases are aligned because of they're not symmetrical on both sides, that could mean that her hips are misaligned. She has the same amount of rolls underneath her butt on both sides. I stroke my hand along the small of her back to give the final confirmation on her hips. Her back is a little bit hairy, which I find cute. She has just a little bit of hair all over it and like her beautiful mother, she has three round little beauty marks scattered all over her back. I turn her back over on her back and lie her down. Her temperature is at a stable, toasty 98.8 degrees so I lower the temperature of the warmer just a little bit. She's perfect. All I have to do is give her some medications that she'll need. Then I have to prick her heel and check her blood sugar because she's at risk for hyper and hypoglycemia since Jo was a diabetic for her pregnancy. Then I'll give her a sponge bath before I take her back to Jo. I wanted to save the medicinal part for last because I'm gonna have to hurt her. I don't want to hurt my baby girl…but I have to. "Daddy's almost done here… and then we can go get you something to eat." I grab the glucose meter and hook up a strip to test her blood.

"Alex, what the hell are you doing, working today?" Arizona's voice sounds loud and clear before she makes it all the way over to me. I guess she doesn't know that I'm examining my own baby. "I thought Jo was getting induced today…shouldn't you be waiting for your baby to be born?" She stands beside me and snatches Aubree's chart out of my hands. "What kind of support system are you if you're up here working? I told you yesterday night when you told me that she was getting induced this morning that I would cover all your patients so all you have to worry about is your baby and what are you doing?" She slaps me in the arm with the chart. "Go. Get outta here." I guess she wouldn't know that Aubree was born already. I didn't text anyone and tell them yet because I was too busy worrying about doing the exam on my baby. I should've left my phone with Jo so she could text Mere, Cristina, Torres and Arizona and tell them. "Get. You should be worrying about your own baby, not somebody else's!" I just look at her with my hand out for the chart. She shakes her head at me and points to the door. With a genuine smile on my face, I glance down at Aubree and then back at Arizona. "…NO WAY!" She covers her hand over her mouth with a HUGE smile on her face. "YOURS?!" She asks and I nod, still staring down at my beautiful baby girl. "Awww! Let me see!" She pushes me out of the way. "Awww… look how gorgeous. She's gorgeous, Alex…"

"I know." I pick up the device I'm gonna use to prick the heel of her foot and stare at her some more. Her cheeks are so chubby and her lips are so full and perfect just like Jo's lips. She's so calm and patient, too. I don't know where the hell she got that from though, because neither me nor Jo are calm people. But she's so patient and sweet and so content. I've been messing with her for half an hour now and she hasn't even cried. My god she's so perfect. "I'm just giving her the normal preemie evaluation before I bathe her all up and take her back to Jo so she can feed her." I hold Aubree's ink-stained foot and put the device to her heel. She has ink all over her foot from when they footprinted her at Jo's bedside. I push the button and prick her foot and THAT makes my calm, sweet, mellow little baby let out the weakest, cutest, tiniest little cry. "I'm sorry honey… I'm so sorry." I put her droplet of blood on the testing strip. Her glucose is a little low but that's okay considering she hasn't been fed yet. "You think… you think maybe you could give her the Vitamin K shot? I'm gonna go get the stuff to give her a bath…" I really just don't want to cause her anymore pain, so yeah… Arizona can give her the shot while I go to grab the stuff to bathe her.

"Sure. I wanna get a better look at her, anyway." Arizona pulls on a pair of gloves and excitedly takes over. "Hi Aubree." As if I didn't do an adequate enough job at examining her, she puts her own stethoscope on Aubree's chest and takes a listen. I know why she's doing it though, so I'm not real insulted. She's reevaluating her so I don't get into trouble. Just in case I missed something that could be deadly for Aubree, she's covering my ass. That's why we don't usually let parents do full workups on their babies because their judgment can be clouded and sometimes they could skip the painful parts. So she's really just trying to have my back and I appreciate it. I grab a washtub from the supply wall we keep in the NICU, as well as two heated towels, a sponge and a small bottle of baby body wash. I glance over at Arizona and Aubree. Arizona is getting ready to jab my baby girl in the thigh with a shot so I look away and pretend to be really busy filling the washtub up with lukewarm bath water. I wish I could give her a bath at Jo's bedside like we're allowed to do with full term babies but we can't because Aubree can't control her temperature during a bath without a radiant warmer. I just wish Jo could be here.

I twist off the cap of the body wash and dump it into the water to make sure there are bubbles and suds. I put the sponge in the water and shove the towels underneath my armpit, carrying the washtub over to the examination table. Aubree's screaming her tiny little lungs out and rightfully so. She's being poked and prodded with needles and stuff. She should be crying. It's kind of cute though, because her cry is so weak that it couldn't even wake you up if you were sleeping next to her but she's crying and she's screaming and I think she's pissed off. I put the washtub next to the exam table and pick out the sponge. "What are you over here doing to my kid, Robbins?" I start by washing Aubree's arms and her belly. She's crying so hard that her little toes are curling under and her feet are kicking out. I wash carefully around her umbilical cord and underneath her armpits. She's still kind of bloody. They wiped her off pretty good after Jo had her but just wiping only gets put so much of the blood and guts off of her. I softly push Aubree's head to the side so I can wash her neck.

"Alex, her cry should be stronger than this." Arizona sounds like she means business. She shoves her pinky finger inside Aubree's mouth and moves it around. "And her sucking reflex isn't strong either. Have you considered putting her on oxygen? To give her lungs a rest?" She grabs Aubree's hand and roughly rubs it to stimulate circulation. "I think she could really benefit from it. I don't think…she'll do horribly without it, but she could really benefit from it." I know the benefits of putting a preemie on oxygen therapy, she doesn't have to tell me all of this. I'm not interested in putting on her oxygen therapy. Putting her on oxygen would mean she would have to spend the night in the NICU and I known good and well that Jo wouldn't be for that. And she doesn't really need oxygen. She's breathing on her own, she's crying when she needs to be and everything is fine. Putting on oxygen would just mean sticking her with an unnecessary needles and hooking her to unnecessary IVs and I just don't want to do that to her. While I'm washing Aubree's inky feet off, Arizona's listening to her lungs. "…I think she'll be fine without it."

"Yeah, I'm not interested in putting her on CPAP." I mumble and move on to wash her hair. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that she has hair. She doesn't have mounds and insane amounts of hair on her head, but she does have enough to where I can't see her scalp towards the back. She has enough hair for it to be silky and fluffy and it's more than just peach fuzz. I'm glad that Jo and Stephanie went ahead and packed that hairbrush. I thought we wouldn't need it but we really do need it because her hair is pretty long. I like how it automatically goes forward though. "Jo wants to see her and I'm not real keen on delaying that." I reach above my head and turn up the heat on the warmer because she's starting to whine again and that might mean that she's cold. "Jo didn't even get to hold her for that long. They took her pretty quickly." I fold the sponge in half to make it small and pointy enough to wash behind Aubree's ears and her face. She's as clean as she's gonna get. "I didn't think they'd take her that quickly. Her APGAR was a seven… I didn't think they'd have to take her off us right then and there."

"Are you tryna tell me that Wilson didn't get to hold her baby?" She puts her stethoscope back around her neck and opens up the drawer below the exam table, where we keep the t-shirts and diapers for newborns. She picks the second smallest size of diapers we offer and THE smallest long sleeved t-shirt we offer. "Because it doesn't seem to me like she's in any apparent distress…they should've kept her with Jo for at least a half hour before they took her." She hands me the diaper and I open it up to put it on her. I strap the diaper around her waist and fold it back around her umbilical cord. Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad that my baby girl is finally here…but I wish I could be back in the delivery room with Jo, just watching her come out. She's already growing up and I don't like it. Gently, I pull the t-shirt over her head and pull her arms through. "I'm gonna go tell Callie how pretty your little girl is. I'll be up to Wilson's room to visit you a little later." She pats my back. "Congrats, Alex… I'm proud of you."

"Thanks." I smile at the fact that she said congratulations. It just makes it ten times more real that I just had a baby. That the little girl I'm dressing and getting ready to swaddle belongs to me. She's mine, get it? If I want to kiss her, I can. If I want to hold her all day every day, I can. If I want to spend all day staring at her, I can. Because she's MY baby. I spend all day looking at everyone else's babies, but this one is mine. And she's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen in my life. I'm not just saying that, either. Maybe I am just a little bit biased but I swear she's just the most beautiful thing I've ever laid my eyes on. I fold her sleeves down and pick her up. She's also pretty tiny. She fits comfortably on my forearm. Her entire body fits from the bend in my forearm to where the palm of my hand starts. "Alright, pretty girl." I plant my lips on her chubby cheek. "Daddy's all done sticking you with things." With her in my one arm since that's all I need to hold her, I lay her blanket down with my other hand. I give her one more kiss on her cheek and lie her down on the blanket. I start swaddling her so I can take her back to Jo.

If I'm being honest, I don't really want to take her back to Jo. I want to curl up in the chair over by the window and hold her for hours on end. I don't want to share her with Jo. I want her all to myself. When I'm done swaddling her, I pick her back up and hold her to my face so I can steal another kiss. But Jo did all the work. She endured five hours of intense contractions without pain medicine to have Aubree. She did the exhausting, daunting task of actually pushing her out and she didn't even get a chance to hold her. So while I'm being a little bit stingy with my baby girl right now, I do think Jo deserves to fully meet her, maybe more than I do right now. "Let's go say hi to your mama." I open up her incubator again to put her back in it. "I miss your mama… do you miss her too?" Before I put her back in the incubator, of course I give her another kiss. "Come on…let's go see her."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Jo's Point of View.<strong>

"It actually didn't hurt much…it was more tiring than anything." I hold Steph's phone out as I'm scrolling to show Leah and Heather. Shane's in surgery with Dr. Shepherd so he didn't come up but Leah and Heather did and I thought that was nice. They brought me pink balloons and that almost made me cry. I didn't realize how many pictures Steph took until I started scrolling through them. I also didn't realize how much I missed her until I started looking at pictures of her. I miss her so much. I don't think they should've been allowed to take her from me so quickly. I didn't even really get a chance to fully meet her before they ripped her outta my arms to go do some things with her. I actually wanna cry just thinking about it. That's cruel and barbaric what they did to me. I was holding my newborn baby and they just waltz right in and take her off me. "The contractions, though… the contractions were horrible. They blew me out the fucking water and I'm not joking." Steph is sitting in the bed next to me and Heather and Leah are both sitting at the edge of my bed. "Pushing was okay but the contractions blew me out the water."

"She's so cute though." Heather grabs Steph's phone from my hand to get a closer look. "Why isn't she in here with you?" She asks, rather bluntly. Leah elbows her in the shoulder for asking. "What? That seems to be the elephant in the room… we're talking about her but she's not here." I feel my throat close up with that lump you get before you cry a little bit. I really might cry. I just want my baby with me so I can show her off to my friends. I don't even know what they're doing to her. I don't know if she's hungry, or scared, or cold, or hurt. I don't know what they're doing to her up there. My jaw starts to tremble and I think I might actually start crying. These fucking hormones are killing me right now. I'd be sad anyway. Even if I wasn't hormonal, I think I'd be sad that they took my baby off of me but I surely wouldn't cry over it if I wasn't hormonal. "Sorry Jo… I didn't mean to…" Heather profusely apologizes and I shake my head and wave my hands at her to let her know that it's not her fault that I'm crying. It's really not her fault.

I sniff and wipe my face and fan myself. "She had to go to the NICU for a little while." I wipe my face some more. "Alex took her up there to give her some medicine and stuff." I bite my lip to keep it from trembling and desperately choke back tears. "It wouldn't even be so bad if they didn't keep faking me out." I sniff again. "The nurses came in here to ask me about her birth certificate information and I thought for sure they were coming in here to give her back." I sigh. "And then this other woman came in here and I thought again that she was coming to bring her back but nope…she just wanted to know if I planned on breastfeeding so she can send a lactation specialist in." I swallow that lump in my throat and take the phone back off Heather. I just want my baby back. I want to meet her, properly. I got to hold her for like two seconds.

"I want a baby…" Leah leans forward to catch one more glimpse at the picture on Steph's phone. My eyes widen and I shake my head at her. "Yes I do. If…" She holds her hand out for the phone and I give it to her. "If God opened up the clouds and came down and said 'Leah Murphy, if you get pregnant RIGHT NOW, I PROMISE your baby will look exactly like Jo's baby', I would get pregnant and have a baby right now. I want an Aubree. Not just a baby, but an Aubree. She has to look just like this." She makes me laugh, even though I feel like crying some more. They really think Aubree's cute and I like that. I know my baby's cute, they don't have to tell me that twice. I know for a fact that my baby is adorable. But it's always so much more meaningful when someone else tells you how cute your baby is. "Jo, she's so cute… how do you deal?"

I shrug. "She is pretty cute, isn't she?" I poke my lip out and stare at the picture of her laying on the exam table they took her to, to give her her APGAR assessment. I sorta wish I was back in the room I had her in. After I got cleaned up and stuff, they moved me to a birthing suite. Which is just a room with a TV, a more comfortable bed and a mini fridge. More people are allowed to be in my room with me in the birthing suite, but only three were allowed in the actual birthing room. "You don't want a baby though, Leah. Not right now." I pull my blanket over my deflated stomach and reach over to grab my water. "You don't want to go through all that pain, you don't want to have to worry about how you're gonna be a mom and be a surgeon. Not right now at least. You don't want a baby. They're more work than just being cute."

"What did the contractions feel like?" Heather asks.

"…Ooh, okay." I take a sip of water and put it back down. "Imagine the worst period cramp you've ever had in your life, then multiply it by like… a hundred. Then imagine the hardest shit you've ever had to take in your life, then replace the turds with razor blades. It feels like you're shitting a knife." Sure that's an odd description, but it's really the only way I can describe how having contractions felt. "I tried to do it without the epidural… but Heather, it was horrible. Fuck that. I could not take that shit anymore. It was god awful. I don't recommend that to anybody."

"You're gonna get the epidural right away when you have your next baby, huh?" She asks.

I bust out in hard, hysterical laughter. I hold my stomach because it hurts to laugh but really, she's funny. "There's not gonna be a 'next baby'. I didn't even want this one. I love my baby girl with every bone in my body but she wasn't supposed to be here. I'm not having any more kids. I'm done. I want my tubes tied, I don't want to pop out any children ever again. I'm done with that."

"But Aubree wants a brother." Steph nudges me.

"Then I guess Alex should go knock someone else up because she's not getting a brother from me. No more babies are popping outta here and I mean that." I slowly cross my legs because the feeling in them is starting to return from the epidural. I got the feeling in my vagina back but my legs are still numb. My vagina is just a little bit sore but that's only because I have stitches down there from tearing. I tore pretty bad. Dr. Maxwell had to put four stitches down there to sew me up. I'm honestly so glad that I had her. I'm so glad that I had my baby. I know I didn't really want her in the first place and I'll spend the rest of my life making up the fact that I didn't want her to her. I'll make it up to her for the rest of my life because I'm so deeply in love with my little girl. I never knew I could love so strongly, you know? I mean, I fell in love with Alex and I thought for sure that was the purest, most sincere form of I've I'll ever feel in my life. But when I locked eyes with my baby, it was all over. She's my entire life. I'd do anything in this world for my little girl. But I'm done. One is enough and I'm done. _Though a Nathan somewhere along the lines would be nice…_

The door to my birthing suite opens up and through it walks Alex. He's dragging something along with him and I know what that something is. I perk up and adjust my position in my bed. My whole mood just lifted. I'm so excited. "They were trying so hard not to tell me which room you were in because the name on my ID band doesn't match yours. I kept trying to tell them that me and you are not married." He grumbles, shutting the door behind himself. I sit up straight and eagerly look into the incubator he's dragging.

"There she is." I pull my hair back into a lazy bun and prep my arms for her. "Give her here, Alex… please." I watch with pure anticipation as he opens up the incubator and pulls out my little white bundle of perfection. He walks her over to me and puts her in my arms. She has a thick pink hat on her head with a bow in the middle of it and she's all wrapped up tightly in this blanket. She looks different than the last time I saw her. She looks so much more perfect than she did the last time I laid eyes on her. Her cheeks are chubbier, her face is less swollen, her lips are more evened out and her skin tone went from a grayish tone to a more natural, cream white one. "Hi again." My smile is just so big and natural. It's not at all forced. "…How'd she do up there?"

"Good." Alex sits down next to me and takes a sip of my water. "I did her full workup and she's healthy. Arizona helped me give her a bath. Her cry is still a little weak but we're watching that. She checks out just fine. She's probably hungry, though."

"Yeah I know. I'm supposed to page the nurse when she's settled in here so I can get that lactation person in here to help me get her to latch on." I can't help but kiss her on her lips. "Can you page the nurse for me?" I ask him and he nods. He grabs the remote behind my bed and pages her for me. "Here, Leah…" I don't want to give her up. I want to be the one to hold her, but I don't want my friends in here while I'm learning how to nurse her so I'll let them hold her before I tell them to get out. Leah takes her from my arms eagerly and holds her like she's a natural. I watch her to make sure she's supporting her head well enough and she is, so I look over at Alex. He's texting on his phone. I sigh and look back over at Leah with my baby. I didn't really think that having his baby would in turn, make me love Alex more but it did. I love him more than I already did. Leah passes Aubree to Heather and I'm okay with that.

The door opens up again and a nurse walks through the door. I halfway listen as Alex explains to her that I'm ready to try and nurse my baby but like I said, I only halfway listen. Heather's face is so priceless while she's holding Aubree and Steph is patiently waiting her turn. Right now, I feel…whole. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what it is. I feel like my life is finally going right. I've got my baby and my man. And my best friend. And I have someone that's related to me by blood. My baby is the only blood relative that I know and that makes me feel good. I have a family now…a family of my own. Steph gets her hands on Aubree and showers her head with a bunch of kisses. She goes to put Aubree back in my arms. "…I'm gonna go grab something to eat from the cafeteria." She gives Aubree another kiss on her head. "I'll be back in a little while, okay?" I put my hands under Aubree's body and nod.

I watch as all of my friends file out of my room and close the door. The nurse is turning on lights and stuff to get ready to help me out as she whips around the room to get things ready. I turn to Alex. "…So what do you think?" I ask him now that we're alone. "We did pretty good, didn't we…"

"I'll say." He gives me that goofy smile that I love so much. "I've seen worse." He touches Aubree's hand and stares at her. "What do you think?"

"I think… we came a long way from making out on your couch and almost kissing in the tunnels." I smile at him and look back down at her. "…I meant about her, though. What do you think about her?"

"I think she's perfect." He keeps staring at her. "I think you're amazing… I think you did amazing." He holds my hand. "…I think this would make a hell of a love story one day. …Boy meets…intern. Boy falls in love with intern… boy cancels his wedding. Boy gets intern pregnant…" He chuckles. I roll my eyes at him. Me and Alex did come a really long way. I never thought… the first time I saw him and thought he was an asshole, I never thought that I'd fall so deeply in love with him. I never thought that our one night stand would lead to the most beautiful baby in history. I just never thought my life would end up this way. I moved to Seattle to start my life. I was fresh out of med school, getting ready to start my career as a surgeon. Never did I think that I would move here and get a boyfriend and a baby and a best friend. It's actually kind of crazy when I think about it. Alex puts his hand on my jaw and lifts my head. He puts his lips to my lips and kisses me. "…Thank you, Jo." I wrinkle my brow. "For… everything. For loving me… for being my girl…for giving me my baby… thank you."

I hold his jaw still and kiss him again. "…I love you."


End file.
